


rearview mirror

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: CIA, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-01
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:13:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 53,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nancy is on a long-term undercover assignment for the CIA when she discovers that the love of her life is getting married -- to someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> NC-17/Adults only. Story contains adult language and adult situations, violence/torture, explicit sex, and noncon/rape. Thanks to ozqueen, glasheen25, and killingstreak for their help with this.

"You okay, man?"

"I'm great," Ned called back, still hanging onto the car door to stay upright. The sidewalk was wet and weaving, dipping under him. Chicago was quiet, as quiet as it ever was. The streetlamps flickered overhead and a siren wailed from a few blocks away. Another series of bruised swollen clouds was rolling in; he had to get inside before the rain started again, he knew that, but he grinned stupidly at Mike, who was laughing at him.

"Get your drunk ass inside before it starts raining."

Ned ignored him. "Can't believe it. Four days."

"Hey, how many times did I tell you? If you had to get married, she's a great girl."

"She is great," Ned sighed. He finally released the door and slammed it, only to slap his palms against the roof of the car to keep his balance. "Which one 'm I?" he said woozily, fumbling in his pocket for his keys as he faced his building.

"If you're that fucked up you can sleep on my couch."

"Nah." Ned waved his hand in the air and laughed. "I'll be fine. I will."

Mike didn't pull away from the curb until the lobby door closed behind Ned. As soon as he was alone he pressed the elevator button with his knuckle and stood waiting, casually perched against the wall.

She was a great girl. Mike was right about that. Laura was utterly lovely, blonde and green-eyed, curvy and vivacious. She'd been strict about their not moving in together before they were married, and he'd been all right with that. He just didn't admit to himself why. Sometimes he regretted it, though. Sometimes he wanted to come to her and tell her that if he wasn't with her, if he didn't stay with her, he'd lose himself, and she'd buy that.

He was a damn coward.

The elevator ride was mildly unpleasant, but Ned had managed to cut himself off an hour before leaving the strip club, so he was no longer teetering on the edge of a massive hangover. Laura had politely demanded that his bachelor party be at least a couple of nights before the rehearsal dinner, so he wouldn't be sallow, bloodshot, mumbling his vows, flinching when the light hit him. The one thing he did want, though, was to stumble into bed. He nodded to himself as he fitted his key into the lock on the third try and shouldered the door open.

One of the lamps was on in the living room.

He stood in the doorway, the light spilling from behind him, and she turned, her lip already trembling.

"God," he choked out before he could stop himself, and dropped his keys from his suddenly nerveless fingers.

She stood and she was wearing that damn blue dress. "I'm sorry..."

Ned stepped inside, sweeping his keys out of the way with the arc of his foot, letting the door drift closed behind him. "Don't say it," he warned her, but he couldn't keep his eyes off her. Her hair was a little different but it was still her, and that dress had always been able to short-circuit common sense where he was concerned. "Don't say it, Nan."

"Please don't marry her," Nancy said, and the first tear streaked down her cheek.

Ned sighed angrily, almost losing his balance as he bent to pick up his keys, deadbolting the door behind him. "Can you give me a good reason not to?"

She slowly walked around the edge of the couch, toward him. "No," she replied, her eyes narrowing. "You know I can't."

"Then I guess we don't have anything to talk about."

"What do you want me to say?" she demanded, then backed down at his glance.

"I'm not going to say it," he said, toeing his shoes off. "Because it's pointless. Do you really... do you honestly think you can say anything to change my mind? She's _here_ , Nancy. She loves me, and I love her, and that's what it's supposed to take. Except when it comes to you."

"So you don't love me anymore." The tears had stopped, even though he could see where they had fallen on her gown, and she was angry now. He liked her better angry. He could deal with angry far better than he could deal with tears.

But he still had to glance away. "No, I don't," he said, not meeting her eyes.

"Liar," she accused him softly. "Do you love her more than me?"

"Yes." She was close enough to touch, far too close in fact, and he was getting married in a few days and this would be insanely difficult for him to explain to anyone, let alone to Laura.

"Liar," she repeated. She was calm now, because she knew.

"You can't do this, we can't do this," he said, as she touched his cheek.

She didn't even bother repeating it, just raised one eyebrow a fraction of an inch before he was crushing his mouth against hers.

\--

In her typical way she had refused to take responsibility for it, but he'd still let her get away with it, so it was as much his fault as hers. He'd supported her when she'd joined CIA because he knew he had no other choice. He just hadn't been prepared when she had come over to see him and, looking at her hands the entire time, his television, his couch, the rug, anything but his face, she'd told him that she was going deep undercover. The mission would be years long. They wouldn't be able to see each other for six months, a year at a time.

"For how long?" he'd choked out, ashen, staring at her like he'd never really known her at all.

"It could be five years," she admitted, and through her obvious discomfort and regret he could see the excitement. She'd always wanted something like this.

And if he tried to stop her, he knew, she would just walk away without a backward glance. So he didn't ask if she'd volunteered, he didn't ask if she'd announced her willingness to go on such an assignment as soon as she'd joined. He just wrapped his arms around her and squeezed until they could barely breathe, saying that they'd just have to make the most of the time they had left, and she'd chuckled, but they had both known it was the beginning of the end. All the dreams he'd ever had for them had started to vanish.

It would've been a thousand times easier if he could stop loving her, but he couldn't. He tried. No one else, no other woman he met, was able to touch the way he felt about her.

She asked him, about a month before she was going to leave, if he would be her first. He had stupidly asked her if she wanted to get married, but it was senseless and he knew that. She wanted him when he was convenient, and marriage was the opposite of convenience. And she never said it, but he knew her answer was just to give him a chance at something else, at a life with someone who wasn't her.

There were many, many reasons not to do it, but they did, three weeks before she was going to leave, and as often as they could after. He found himself wanting to beg her, wanting to plead with her to stay, but the only thing that stopped him was knowing that she'd refuse.

The tiniest hope that she would say yes kept him from asking.

They laughed, though, and he was thankful for that. They held each other and laughed in his dorm room, in her bedroom at home, in his bedroom at his parents' house, in hotel rooms. They went through boxes of condoms and learned each other, after the first time, after the awkwardness and pain were over with. She could be incredibly gentle or remarkably fierce, and she almost let herself go with him. They were one and then she would bite her lip and look away and he would be almost sure that she was steeling herself to leave him, that sometimes what they had and what they had found with each other could be enough to keep her with him.

But in the end, it wasn't. Every time he walked by a jewelry store he found his attention drawn to the diamonds, to plain bands of silver and gold, to beg her. Even if she couldn't stay with him, even if she wouldn't be able to wear the ring, he wanted so badly to give it to her, to have her accept that sign. To keep her faithful.

They had three days left together. She had her face against his neck and her arm slung over him, and they were naked, their skin slick where it touched. He moved his leg and she murmured something, her hair sliding over his arm.

"Nan," he whispered.

"Mmm," she replied, raking her hair out of her face. She hooked her leg over his hip, anticipating another round.

"No," he said, chuckling a little, "not yet."

"Soon," she pouted, but her eyes were good-natured. "What?"

He rolled half off the bed, her legs still wrapped around his hips, and rummaged through his clothes until he found it. He pulled himself back onto the bed and she was watching him, comprehension and fear sparking in her eyes.

He opened the black velvet box and she sighed, her eyes closing.

"I... I know," he said. "But, Nan..."

She pulled away from him, then reached for her shirt and tugged it back on. He could feel himself getting angry, because anger was easier than anything else.

"So now you're just going to leave?"

She turned on him, her eyes glinting dangerously. "I knew this was a mistake," she said, and he sat up, the ring box snapping angrily closed. "This wasn't supposed to happen, Ned."

"Which part, exactly?"

She sighed in exasperation. "I... I don't know what's going to happen. I just wanted this, because they keep telling me, there will come a time when I might forget who I was, and this, _this_ is real. This I can't lose. You're a part of my history now. But you can't do this to me—"

"What is it that I'm doing to you? Sleeping with you?"

"No! That." She nodded at the box. "You can't do this, can't blackmail me into staying here—"

"Is that what you think this is? Nan, I... God. You think I don't know by now that the best way to lose you is to try to keep you?"

They just stared at each other for a moment. "Is that really what you think?"

He shook his head. "I... okay. Okay. I'll be honest. I want you to stay here. I'd give almost anything to make you stay here with me, but I know you're not going to, that I'll only hurt myself if I try to make you stay. But I want... I want to hear you say that you're going to..."

He choked, then, and couldn't go on, and she put her arms around him and squeezed him tight. "If what we're trying to do with this, doesn't work, they're probably going to tell me to seduce him," she said softly. "To get that close to him, to get him to trust me. I... you need to know that."

"And that's what you want?"

"Of course not," she said impatiently, brushing at her eyes. "But this is going to be years, Ned. And you can't put your life on hold for me while I'm gone. If I get caught and killed there's a good chance they'll never even tell you. Or you could go a year without hearing from me. You can't live like that. I can't let you."

"So what are you saying." His breath was coming quicker, harder now. The box felt warm in his hand.

"I will be faithful to you," she said, and smiled. "I will. If I have to seduce someone, so be it. But don't ever doubt that I do love you."

"Nan..."

She put her thumb on his lips. "And I know you love me," she said softly. "I know that. I knew it when we slept together the first time, and I know it now. So when things change, if I come back to you in one piece, if you still feel the same way about me..." She nodded at the closed box. "Give that to me then. But I'm not going to hate you, I'm not going to kill you if you find someone else. Even though it'll tear me apart." She smiled.

"I won't."

"Then..." She nodded at the ring box. "Just keep it for me."

He looked at it, put it on the table, and it was another moment before he could speak. "Did you know this the entire time? That this... was going to be this way? This is all we have?"

She nodded. "I couldn't have done it otherwise," she said softly. "I wouldn't have done it otherwise. If this was our chance, I couldn't waste it. Even though." She cut herself off and looked away.

"Nan, if you," he began, but he couldn't finish it. He couldn't kill that last tiny hope with certainty.

"It's all right, Ned." She gently pushed him onto his back, straddling him, reaching for another condom, then brushing her mouth over his. "It's all right," she whispered against his lips.

So he closed his mouth, cupping her breasts through the warm fabric of her shirt, closing his eyes as she stripped her panties off and rolled the condom on him.

He wanted to make it last forever. He held her hips to his, making sure he could feel the aftershock with every tremble of her body over his, and when she collapsed to him he braced his heels and thrust his hips up against hers, building another slow, sweet orgasm in her before he came.

She smiled at him, after, and he couldn't stop gazing at her, unable to smile, unable to do anything more than stroke her face and try to memorize it, the way she felt against him, the way her eyes grew bright, her cheeks flushed after.

"You're the only one," he said softly. "You know that."

"Yes," she sighed. "I know."

\--

And then, three days later, she was gone. There were plausible lies in place but as far as Ned was concerned, the cover was that they were broken up, and they both knew it was true. Nothing else really mattered.

He came to her, seven months later, in Madrid. Through some prearranged protocol an agent contacted him and with barely half a day's notice he was over the ocean, waiting for her, and when she walked into his arms, when he touched her, he knew.

It broke his heart to take her to that bed, knowing she had been with someone else. It made him sick, made him rough. But the relationship they'd forged over those weeks came back like no time had passed at all, and if she never said it then maybe it wasn't true.

She told him anyway and he hated himself for not walking away then, but he couldn't.

Eight months later in Paris. Five months after that, in Cairo. He saw the pale mark of a recently-removed ring on her finger and couldn't stop himself from asking, in the dark, listening to the cabs, their horns the wrong pitch, the guttural and rapid speech of the shopkeepers.

"It's not real. It's not in my name." Her hand tightened on his, holding his palm to her breast.

"Do you use condoms with him too?"

She sighed. "Yes. And I'm on hormone injections. It's going to be okay."

He buried his face in her hair and realized he barely knew her scent anymore.

And then, after a day and a half in Berlin, there was nothing, no reassurances, no notice of her death, nothing. Sometimes Carson called and they talked about it without even mentioning her name, and he could hear the worry taking years off Carson's life, but there was nothing they could do.

And then he'd met Laura. He fought his attraction to her, expecting a note from Nancy at any moment, expecting another black company car at the curb waiting for him, but it kept not happening, not happening. She was silent. He gave her another three months, a week more, and still she was silent, and Laura... well, he could do much worse than Laura.

Never in a million years had he expected that she would be back again, two days before his wedding.

\--

She kept waiting. She kept waiting for him to pull back, to say that they couldn't, that he wouldn't.

She had been afraid that in the time between, that terrifying magnetism would have lessened, dwindled. Instead, walking into his apartment, seeing him standing there, it had all washed over her again like the first time she saw him. When their eyes met, she had felt an answering clench between her thighs.

He tasted like alcohol, burning bitter alcohol, and his flesh radiated warmth. Through the thin satin of her dress she could feel him, and she shivered when the backs of his fingers brushed down her jaw, when he hooked his fingers in the straps of her dress and dragged his fingertips over her skin, catching her bra straps, pulling them to the points of her shoulders. Nancy buried a hand in his hair, the other tugging at the hem of his shirt, sliding beneath. When her palm brushed the small of his back he surged against her, pinning her between him and the back of the couch.

She had to open her eyes.

With Eri it was different. She had learned to make Eri happy, had never been able to forget that she wasn't in Ned's arms. She could feel herself slipping into that terrible sham of joy, and then she opened her eyes and saw Ned, and he effortlessly picked her up and placed her just at the edge of the couch's back. Her heels slipped off one-by-one and Ned's hands snaked under her dress, and he sucked her lower lip into his mouth, bit it gently as he hooked his fingers around the string sides of her panties.

She shivered and pushed herself up by her palms so he could tug her panties off, and with a savage flick of her ankle she sent them flying. She set herself to his pants, unbuttoning them and yanking down the zipper, pausing only to let him pull her dress over her head and toss it to the couch. He unhooked her bra and she shrugged it off, then pushed down his underwear. Through the tails of his shirt she could see him, his cock already standing for her.

She met and held his gaze, grabbing his forearms for balance as she folded her legs around his waist, pulling him in toward her with her heels. He slipped his finger between her legs and found her wet, then sucked the taste of her off his fingertip before he moved in close to her. She slid her arms around his neck, holding onto him for dear life as he positioned himself between her legs, and she felt the tip of his cock just barely press inside her. Then his hips pressed to hers so swiftly that the couch moved a few inches, his hands holding her ass as their lips brushed again.

Then he pulled out of her and pressed in again, slowly, filling her, and she sucked in a long breath, feeling like she was falling. His rhythm built and he slid his hand into her hair, drawing her head back up from the dreamy loll on her shoulder. She could taste herself on his tongue when he kissed her, the slick glide of his cock in and out of her, building a trembling, slow desire.

She had never truly lost that desire.

She dug her nails into his shoulders and her heels into his back, tilting back even more, and with a groan Ned began to fuck her, hard. Any hint of tenderness was lost as he slammed home, again and again, pushing her legs wide apart, leaving her trembling at the height of each thrust.

And then she lost her balance, and her grip on him tightened as she fell backward onto the couch. As Ned followed she heard the unmistakable sound of fabric ripping, and then Ned's weight was pinning her down, the buttons of his shirt digging into her belly. His legs were up in the air, his ankles caught in his underwear, and they were both panting.

Nancy shifted and cupped Ned's cheek in her palm. "Hey, Ned."

He chuckled. "Hey."

They managed to untangle. Ned struggled out of the rest of his clothes, while Nancy groped in the dark for her own. From habit she flicked on the overhead light, and then she and Ned were facing each other.

Ned was the first to speak. "We can't do this."

She had been steeling herself against those words from the second she had boarded the plane. She had been repeating those words like a desperate chant the whole way. For a moment the anger and hurt swirled up in her chest, telling her to get dressed and leave. Telling her that he deserved his life, the life she had given back to him before she had left. She had done everything she could to burn this bridge, to leave him behind.

But she had never really believed that he would possibly get married to someone else. She had wanted to believe that when he had shown her that diamond ring, it was a promise that he would wait. That if he really loved her, even when she was gone, he would stay constant, would stay faithful.

But she had left him, had faked a bright smile and forced out the words she'd always meant to say to Ned someday to another man instead, had trained herself not to recoil from Eri's touch.

She didn't deserve him. And she knew that.

Ned let out a quiet sigh and vanished into his bedroom. Nancy stepped into her panties, her vision blurring with tears, and had just hooked her bra when Ned came back in, wearing a pair of boxers and an undershirt.

"Are you here for good?"

Nancy pulled her dress back on and sat down on the couch, mutely shaking her head.

"So you come here, in that dress, just to tell me that you've changed your mind." Ned's arms were folded, and his jaw was set. She could see that vein pulsing in his temple.

"I can't..." Nancy bent over, resting her chin on her knee. "I guess this was a mistake. I'm sorry."

She pushed herself up, avoiding his gaze, and found her shoes. When she slipped her foot into the second one, she felt Ned's hand close around her arm, just above the elbow.

Her skin was still hypersensitive. She felt like a string pulled tight; the baby curls at her hairline were prickly with sweat and her breasts were tender under her dress, and her awareness of his warmth ran up and down her spine. She still felt uncomfortably slick between her thighs.

"If you're not here for good, were you just going to come here and use me? Like you did before you left?"

Nancy spun, blinking hard. "Is that what you thought it was?"

"Wasn't it? Flying me over so you could fuck me like a dirty little secret? While you're married to someone else?"

"It's not—" Nancy shook her head. "We talked about this, before I left. And I didn't use you. I didn't."

"You just wanted to cross me off your bucket list before you moved on. And Laura is different, Nan. She's an amazing girl. And you left. And you _told_ me that you wanted me to move on. Or don't you remember that."

Nancy took a step back, then another. Her throat ached.

"I know—" She had to stop and take a long breath in the middle, had to stop for fear a sob would choke her voice off. "I know what I said, and I thought you loved me. I thought you'd wait for me. But I couldn't ask you to do that, knowing what I was going to do. I thought I was doing you a favor, I thought I was doing both of us a favor letting you go, but when I heard you were getting married..." She swiped the tears from her cheeks, smearing her mascara in the process. "I didn't understand until then that you're what's keeping me going. That the thought of coming back to you was what was letting me get through this. But that's not a good reason, is it."

Ned shook his head. "If you had just taken the ring—"

"And what? E—he finds out I'm here, I end up at the bottom of a shallow grave and you don't find out for five years. I couldn't ask you to do that. And besides, what if you..."

"Met someone else," Ned finished, and took a step toward her. "You can't have it both ways, Nan."

She nodded. "Yeah. I know."

He closed the distance between them, lifting his hand. He held it poised there, between them, for a moment before he touched her cheek. "Are you staying for good?"

Her nose was stuffed up. She bit her lip. "Is that what it'll take?"

Ned nodded.

Nancy's eyes filled again, stinging, and when she blinked another wave of tears slipped down her cheeks. "You'd call it off, everything?"

"Are you saying you'd stay?"

She sighed and Ned's hand dropped. "We don't have everything we need yet."

"And when will that be?" Ned rubbed his face with his palms, letting out a soft groan of irritation. "Nan. God, Nan."

She saw it then, and let out a slow breath. His heat radiated to her. She slipped a hand up to touch his cheek and kissed the other, feeling his breath on her skin.

"If you tell me to walk away, I will," she said softly. "I'll walk out and I'll be out of your life and you can marry her with my blessing."

"Until your mission is over?" Ned's voice was tight.

"Forever."

He swallowed. "Look, you're probably jetlagged as shit, and I know I'm not thinking straight. Take the bed, I'll sleep in here. We can talk in the morning."

Nancy looked down. "Yeah, sure," she said, her hands dropping back to her sides. "In the morning."

But he hadn't said no.


	2. Chapter 2

Sloane was a series of layers, of tiny variations. Nancy had built the legend for her carefully, and she was different when she was Sloane. She knew that.

Nancy had left Ned tangled in the blanket on his couch, his legs curled up, cold in the hard blue light before dawn. She had looked down at him, her breath shallow to keep from waking him, her head pounding.

He had waited for her. But he was done waiting for her.

She had walked out without saying goodbye, walked out and started putting Sloane back on in a gas station bathroom, peering at her reflection in the grimy mirror, soothing her swollen eyes with the throb of cold water gushing from the pitted faucet before blotting her face with a rough brown-paper towel. The eye makeup went on first, the heavy upper curve of liner, the thin lower arch just touching her lashes. She put on three coats of mascara and tapped a gradient of eyeshadow down from her brow.

Sloane was a minor socialite whose father had made and lost a fortune during the Internet bubble. Sloane had a string of mobster boyfriends and while she was strong and liked to speak her mind, she also very much respected authority. She also looked amazing in an evening gown, because Sloane worked out religiously for two hours a day, and had a personal trainer and a masseuse and a nutritionist and a personal chef.

And from the second Nancy boarded the plane she had to be Sloane, because if she slipped, oh, if she slipped. Sloane only watched the news as it pertained to who was screwing who and who was wearing what at what awards show, and Nancy only gleaned the outskirts, the punchlines of jokes.

And Sloane never asked questions, other than how much Eri was going to give her for her next dress allowance or what color he wanted her to wear or whether he thought the guest bedroom needed new drapes. Because Eri was the most paranoid target she had ever gone after, and in all the time she had been with him she had managed to turn over a grand total of seven facts that CIA hadn't known, but those seven facts had been vital.

Nancy traced a nail over the edge of her lips to keep the cupid's-bow above Sloane's upper lip sharp.

During the plane ride she spread the latest issues of the glossy celebrity magazines on her tray table and flipped through the pages without seeing the spreads of red-carpet entrances, paparazzi snapshots, and publicity interviews. One gossip column was topped with a pair of stylized wedding bells.

She was going to be okay without him. She had been okay without him. She had been okay.

Tears rose to Nancy's eyes but Sloane didn't cry, Sloane never cried.

She had to put him back in the box, back in the place she never let herself think about, and shove him even deeper. She had let him go a long time ago, she just hadn't known it was real. And she could get through it. When the mission was over

  
_(part of her was sure it would never be over; part of her was sure Eri would intercept a transmission or see a photo of her as herself and it would all be over)_   


there would be another and another and she never had to set foot in Illinois again unless she wanted to. Cases to solve, people to help. All she'd ever wanted.

All she had ever wanted.

Nancy allowed herself the luxury of one tear. Sloane pressed the edge of a napkin to her lashes and drew it back, watching the moisture spread through the paper, a darkness tinged a darker black.

Sloane was in love with Eri. In love. Never, ever wanted to let him go.

Nancy took a breath and Sloane let it out and it was done.

\--

"Hey baby."

Laura let her purse fall from her shoulder into her open palm and leaned over the table, her lips grazing Ned's cheek. Ned had arrived fifteen minutes early, which had given him ample opportunity to marvel at the couples seated out on the patio with him. A few were obviously co-workers, but the pairs chattered together over entrees, rhapsodized over the chicken piccata and blackberry-drizzled cheesecake, exchanged lingering kisses before heading to separate cars, separate workplaces.

"Hey," Ned returned, reaching for Laura's hand. "Look, I—"

"Can I get you something to drink?" The waitress appeared with a perky grin, pen poised over her order pad.

Laura squeezed Ned's hand. "Water with lemon."

As soon as she was gone, Laura's gaze fell on him again. Her hair was falling in cascades of perfect gold waves around her heart-shaped face, and her green eyes sparkled from beneath darkened lashes. If she called tonight to say she couldn't make it, it would be because of a friend or work emergency, not because of a new case. And in just a few days she would walk down the aisle to him, in her gorgeous white dress.

Nancy had left without saying goodbye, without even waking him. She was gone. And that was her answer.

Ned stroked his thumb down the back of Laura's soft hand. "We always said we'd tell each other the truth."

Laura's smile slipped, just enough for him to notice. "We did," she agreed.

"I..."

When the waitress came by with Laura's water, Laura slipped her hand out of his, taking a long sip, but her fingers looked like they were trembling a little. "So, figured out what you want yet?"

"Salad," Laura said, and her green eyes flashed up to his, then down at her napkin, then back again.

"Chicken, shrimp, chef?"

As the waitress walked Laura through the options, Ned decided on his meal. "Chicken cordon bleu sandwich with fries, thanks."

When the waitress was gone they fell silent for a moment. "Ned, are you... did something happen at the bachelor's party?"

Ned looked down.

Laura's fist struck a soft blow on the tabletop. "I told you! Ned, I told you, and you swore—"

"It wasn't... it wasn't at the club. It was after."

For the few seconds Ned could bear to meet her gaze, it was piercing. Her eyes were beautifully soft and gorgeous when she was pleased, but when she was angry, he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

"I think you'd better go ahead and tell me. Just get it over with."

"Nancy was waiting for me when I got back to my place."

Laura sat back, letting out a long, slow breath. A drop of condensation slid down her water glass. At the next table, a rotund man brayed with sudden laughter. Laura's thumbnail flicked against the inside of her index nail as she glanced over at the noise, then back to him.

Laura had known when they'd met, about Nancy. He had told her early on that his relationship with Nancy was complicated, but as more time had passed, as the radio silence had persisted, he had mentioned her less and less. Nancy was a piece of baggage Ned would always carry. He just hadn't quite told the truth about Nancy's career, because that truth wasn't his to tell.

"And what."

"Baby—"

"Don't 'baby' me. And what, Ned." The rims of Laura's eyes were starting to turn pink.

Ned sighed, and then chuckled. "Mike told me that when you and I got engaged, girls would come out of the woodwork—"

But Laura wasn't laughing, had nothing near a smile on her face, and Ned gave up.

"She told me she still loved me and she wanted to get back together."

"And what did you tell her?"

"That I was marrying you."

Laura looked like she was on the verge of relaxing, but then she leaned forward again. "And she just let it go, just like that?"

"Pretty much."

"And then you sent her on her way. And you just felt like telling me because you wanted to be honest." Her eyes had lost that sharp, flushed look.

"Yeah. She was gone—"

Laura stopped with her silverware half-unrolled and pinned him with her gaze again. "She was gone _what_?"

"She slept over."

In a flash, with a terrible screech of the chair legs, her hair tossed back, Laura was standing on the other side of the table, glaring down at him.

"Did you sleep _with_ her?"

"Laurie—"

"Did you?"

Ned glanced around. Some of the other patrons were staring. A waitress stood with a sweating silver pitcher, her gaze darting between the two of them. When Ned turned back to Laura, her face was pure white. Ned stood up.

"Look, please, just sit down—"

"You did, didn't you."

"Please, just—"

Laura shook her head, her hair flying. "Such an idiot. I am such an idiot. Oh my God."

She jerked her purse up so swiftly the table shook and hooked it over her shoulder, and then she was gone, without even a furious look back at him.

Ned sank back into his chair. "Well, that went well," he muttered.

\--

"Eri!"

"Darling!"

Sloane was fully in place by the time Nancy walked through the front doors of Eri's home, and Sloane raced across the living room, throwing her arms around Eri's neck. "Hold on," he muttered into his cell as she buried her face just under his jaw, breathing in his scent. "Did you have a good time at the wedding, love?"

"Do you want to see?" She reached for her cell and pressed the photo collage option.

"In just a second." Eri returned to his conversation, muttering a few closing phrases Nancy filed away for later processing. Sloane pulled up a few shots from the "wedding," legit photos that gave her a plausible excuse for being away from him.

"I didn't expect you back so soon," he said, after she had scrolled through the entire digital album.

"I just missed you so much."

"All that wedding stuff got you thinking of me?"

"Maybe a little." She perched on the edge of his lap, playing with the hair at the back of his neck. "Are you booked solid, or could we go upstairs for a little... more intimate reunion?" She let a slow, knowing smile play over her lips.

"I guess I could spare a little time," he teased her, drawing her face down to his for a long, slow kiss.

The trick was to let herself drown. The trick was to be Sloane, and while she wasn't quite snug back inside that skin yet—

  
_(oh, oh God, the first time, the first time she saw Ned after she had slept with Eri, how terrible it had been. She had been sure Eri could feel it, could taste it on her, could sense the marks his fingers hadn't quite left on her skin, and she had known that Ned did)_   


—it was easier, now, to pull it back on. She pulled back and smiled at him, studying his gaze, nothing but adoration in her own. For Nancy it felt like betrayal, but for Sloane, this was her husband.

She slipped off his lap and went upstairs, changing into a shimmering aquamarine slip she had picked up specifically for him, and every time she felt her thoughts try to take that turn, she slammed that path shut. Eri came in, shutting off the lights with a wide smile, and when he picked her up and tossed her onto the bed, she giggled in delight.

"Tell me how much you missed me, baby."

"So. Much." She shivered when his hands skimmed up under the slip, pushing it up, and she set her attention on his pants, pulling them open. She was wet in anticipation.

Sloane was wet in anticipation.

She closed her eyes and when she opened them, she could see Ned above her, staring down at her. When she blinked the image was gone.

She kept waiting for it to happen again, waited for her guilt to surface again, but it didn't. She urged Eri onto his back and straddled him, moaning when he cupped her breasts, when he stroked her hips. Their lovemaking

  
_(Sloane thought of it as love, and Nancy couldn't think of it at all)_   


was as satisfying as it ever was; her kegels made sure of that.

She slid off him and flopped onto her back, still panting, and brushed her hair out of her face.

"Can you have lunch with me tomorrow?"

"And miss my yoga?" she teased him, drawing her fingertip down the center of his chest. "Are you sure?"

"I have to go see my uncle." He curved a finger under her chin, stroked up her jaw, to the tender place just beneath her ear. "Maybe we could have lunch back here? In bed?"

"Mmmm," she agreed, kissing his shoulder. "I'll head back here just as soon as I can. Just for you."

"Always just for me," he said in his mock-stern voice, possessively squeezing her breast before he slid back out of bed.

As she waited for the shower to heat up, she scrutinized her naked body in the mirror. She and Ned had barely had sex; she couldn't remember the feel of his teeth against her skin, couldn't remember his fingers digging bruises into her flesh, this time. She was just barely flushed, the sweat leaving the faintest glimmer on her skin, but she was otherwise untouched, pure.

Somewhere, silently, internally, she had known when she had had sex with Eri more times than she'd had it with Ned. She had counted off the days without him, had been desperate for more excuses, for another way to go back to him.

But that was over now. She had to put Nancy and all Nancy's baggage, all her doubt and insecurity and fear, back in that box and be Sloane until it was done.

So Eri was going out of town.

Sloane stepped into the shower, immediately rinsing her thighs.

\--

Laura said she couldn't do it over the phone, and so Ned sat on his couch, fidgeting with the remote, waiting for the buzzer to sound. Rings couldn't be returned over the phone. Slaps couldn't be given over the phone. And Laura wasn't the kind of girl who would ever be into phone sex or public sex or car sex—

Ned shook his head, then glanced around the room again. He had looked around earlier, but none of Nancy had been left; he didn't realize until he started looking that he had wanted to find a note, a lost earring, anything, any clue she might have left behind, even the scent of her perfume. But it was all gone, and he had sprayed fabric refresher on the couch just in case Laura would somehow be able to sense that was where it had happened.

He had to go by the safe deposit box. And, depending on what she was about to say, call off a wedding. Unless she already had.

When the buzzer finally did ring out, Ned muted the television and called Laura up, then lingered in the doorway of his kitchen, shifting his weight from foot to foot, waiting. He pulled in a slow breath and pushed it out before he pulled his door open.

Laura was squeezing and releasing her purse strap, over and over, when she stepped into his apartment. Her gaze darted around, like she was searching for the same thing he had, or maybe for a long-legged reddish-blonde in a short blue dress.

"Hey."

"Hey," Laura replied, and her green eyes fixed on his face. "Ned, do you swear, I mean _swear_ , that it was nothing, that it won't happen again?"

"Baby, you _know_ I love you."

She tilted her head. "Tell me it won't happen again."

Ned sighed. "It won't happen again. It barely happened—"

"Shh," she said, holding a hand up. "Look, I didn't want you to have one of those stupid bachelor's parties as it was, I was so sick at the thought of you even looking at another girl, and... and I've been so mad at you. _So_ mad." She squeezed her purse strap again. "But... but I love you. And I don't want to call off the wedding, I don't. I want to marry you." She touched his arm. "So... was this cold feet? Were you just worried? Because if you're worried, we can put this off, we can talk through this, but if you're sure, if you still want to do this—"

"Oh, Laura, babe, I love you so much, and I don't— I really, really do want to marry you. As soon as we can. Whenever you want us to. And I really, really don't deserve for you to do this—"

She grinned, her eyes softening, and threw her arms around him, her purse bumping against his chest. "Oh, Ned, this has been the worst day. The _worst._ And Jackie and Alex said I should just call it off—"

Ned groaned. "You told them?"

Laura nodded, wiping at her eyes. "I had to talk to someone."

"And they were the only ones." She looked away from him. "Laura?"

"Well, my mom..."

Ned sighed loudly, sitting down on the back of the couch. "So all I'm gonna feel, all day, is them death-glaring at me."

"But not me." Laura gave him a tentative smile.

"Then I guess I can get through it," he said, mock-grudging, and pulled her into his arms.

\--

Sloane went to the morning class at the yoga studio downtown, as she did every weekday. She took a quick shower and walked across the street, her mat rolled and tucked under her arm, and pushed open the glass door of the coffee shop. Shae, the barista, answered Sloane's grin with one of her own.

"The usual?" Shae picked up a cup, her marker poised over it.

"Uh... the other usual."

Shae nodded, scribbling a recipe onto the cup. Once the cup ended up at the pickup station, it had a brown sleeve wrapped around it.

Brown. No message, no meet. All clear.

She called it her vice. When she walked in carrying the mostly-empty cup, and struck a pose against the doorframe in Eri's study, he glanced up at her and chuckled.

"Making sure you stay awake for our lunch?"

"All those yoga poses are so tiring," she teased him, tossing her mat into a nearby chair.

She was very, very careful to cast only the vaguest gaze around at everything in his study. There were no secret passages; she had gone over every inch of the house's measurements. There were, however, a few safes. She didn't know the combinations, but she had the tech to break in. But that had to be saved for the end-game, for the day she was going to walk out that door and never, ever walk back in.

He had two computers, a laptop and a desktop, and a tablet computer. All three were password-protected. From all she knew about his paranoia, though, the computers wouldn't easily yield much information.

And there was the security system he had in place throughout the house, and the staff who was entirely faithful to him and suspicious of everyone else. And her abiding fear that the majority of the information she needed lived only in his head.

But he had to have a backup somewhere. He brokered guns and equipment, for drug dealers, for kingpins, for despots and crimelords. He had account numbers, records, shipping details somewhere. All the blood on his hands was commemorated somewhere.

And that was why Sloane could be in love with him, while Nancy couldn't. Sloane was a shell of a human being, and so was Eri.

"Tell me you won't be gone long," she said, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. She slid onto the edge of his desk, careful not to disturb any of his papers. "I don't like it when you're gone long."

"You could come with me," he teased her, reaching for her, sliding one warm palm up and down her thigh. But going with Eri meant a bodyguard and shopping trips and not learning anything, and then sprawling on their hotel bed in something sleek and calculated to drive away all rational thought immediately when he entered the room.

Hotel rooms made Sloane adventurous. Hotel rooms made Nancy remember Ned.

She put a slow smile on her face. "And you'll actually be around? You promise?"

"I'll be yours. All night."

For a second Nancy forgot herself and gazed deep into Eri's eyes. She saw love there, and the lazy assurance that kept him surrounded by beautiful women whenever they went out. She knew every inch of him, remembered every gift he had ever given her, every kiss he had stolen, every touch.

And she had to fight the shudder, had to fight to keep the sultry smile on her face, until Sloane was back in place again.

He didn't see himself as a bad man. Of course he didn't. He did favors for friends and got a cut for himself, and that paid for the live they were living, for the parties, the cars, the trips.

  
_Don't._   


Sloane put Nancy away. Sloane put the doubt and fear and revulsion away and put her hand over Eri's.

"I seem to remember a promise to get things started, right about now."

Eri chuckled. "Give me a few minutes. I'll be right there."


	3. Chapter 3

Ned married Laura on a perfect spring day. The sky was a pure unbroken blue and she was radiant, almost to breaking, in her long dress, the folds whispering with her steps as she walked toward him. She handed off the flawless yellow globe of her bouquet and took his hands. The corners of her eyes were crinkling, her smile was so wide.

Ned returned it, his heart fluttering a little in his chest.

His wife. In less than an hour she would be his wife.

He didn't have to tell himself not to think of Nancy. But every now and then, at the edges of his vision, he mistook her hair for that shade of burnished red-gold that he'd twined between his fingers so many times, saw Laura's green eyes as a deep sea-blue, heard the deeper knowing tone of Nancy's laughter instead of the pealing bells of Laura's.

But Nancy was gone, and he didn't have to worry about it anymore, didn't have to worry that she would come and draw him back into her orbit. She had tried and failed, and now he had Laura, forever.

The minister cast his benevolent gaze over the crowd and repositioned the Bible in his hands.

Ned hadn't wanted to do his own vows, and Laura hadn't either. No unity candle, no soloist, no music other than the opening and closing. All he cared about was the rings and hearing her say she would love him until death parted them, saying those same words to her in return.

Then it was done. She let out a nervous, delighted laugh as he swept her up into his arms and planted a smacking theatrical kiss on her pink lips. The audience crowed and cheered around them, and he put her back down, smiling into her eyes.

"Ready, Mrs. Nickerson?" He offered his arm.

"Ready, Mr. Nickerson," she replied, looping her arm through his.

 _It should hurt, a little,_ he thought with some amazement. _To cut everything away like this. To gain everything like this._

He walked out into the bright sunshine with his wife on his arm.

\--

Sloane looked at the bed. She wore a slip that just barely skimmed the tops of her thighs and left none of her to the imagination, paired with a garter belt and stockings and impossibly tall heels.

He'd walk in and she'd already be arranged on the bed like some present waiting to be unwrapped, legs crossed just-so, gaze heavy-lidded.

In the meantime, though, she stepped out of the heels and swiftly unzipped Eri's suitcase.

She wasn't optimistic about finding anything. She felt in the outside pockets, in the inner lining, and swiftly lifted his shirts out of the suitcase, slotting them into the drawers. She went through his pants pockets and found only a single receipt for a chicken sandwich he had bought while she was out of town.

From habit she transferred it to her own suitcase, then returned to her search.

He had brought along one of his best suits. The satin lining slipped cool over her fingertips as she felt in the inner pockets, the buttonhole. Nothing.

Frustrated, she walked back over to the bed and sat down, glancing at the alarm clock. She opened the drawer and flipped through the Gideon Bible. The room was too warm; even though she had fiddled with the air conditioning unit under the window, and it was currently gurgling and chugging along to itself, she could feel the heat radiating through the blackout curtains, tangling orange with dust motes and the stiff faded fabric. Idly she went to her suitcase and pulled a thick robe on. Cam would probably come in to scout the room before Eri came in, and she had already seen the way he looked at her when he thought she couldn't see. Disgust and desire. She'd hate to see the look on his face if he saw her in this.

She had the sudden mental image of him in the security camera room, watching the feed from their bedroom back at the house, and shivered in revulsion.

A laminated placard near the phone listed the local channels and calling rates. She pushed it to the side and found a notepad, already covered with a series of concentric circles, spirals, loops. Eri's hands were almost never still.

She ripped the top sheet off and held it up to the light, trying to see if he had written anything on a previous sheet.

She heard the muted footsteps, dampened by the carpet, approaching, and shoved the sheet into her suitcase along with the receipt. By the time the electronic lock made its tired whirring sigh and the handle turned, she was standing in front of the silent television, her gaze centered on the door.

Cam's gaze fell in the vicinity of her hips before rising to her face, and Sloane fought hard to keep her eyes from narrowing. Eri was behind him, though, and once Cam gave the all-clear sign, he walked in with a broad grin on his face, one she returned. So whatever he had come here to do, it was going well.

"Darling," he said, reaching for her. With a pointed glance and a jerk of his chin he sent Cam out, and as he stepped close Sloane dropped the thick robe, tossing it over a chair and turning back to him. Eri gazed at her like an enraptured child on Christmas morning, catching the lacy edge of her gown between his fingertips.

"Remind me to never leave you at home again," he said, drawing her close to him.

Sloane raised her chin, purring softly as his lips found the smooth column of her neck.

That familiar pit of dread hardened in Nancy's stomach as he gathered her gown in his hands.

\--

It wasn't that Ned had never seen Laura in a nightgown. It was that he'd never before been allowed free reign to follow his immediate impulse whenever he saw her in a nightgown.

They had the hotel's overdone honeymoon suite, complete with the cheesy heart-shaped hot tub and waiting bottle of iced champagne, that her father had somehow managed to pay for. Even so, as Ned sat on the edge of the bed in his boxers and waited for Laura to emerge from the bathroom, he couldn't have cared less about it all. He just wanted her, and for the entirety of their relationship he had been allowed only glimpses, the edge of teasing, a caress when he wanted to pin her, gasping, under him. She had wanted to wait.

And he had waited, oh how he had waited, as that last time

(he didn't let himself think her name)

had become more and more distant, as his frustration and desire had grown. It felt monstrous, now, swelled by the release he had denied himself.

Laura emerged from the bathroom in a long opaque gown of ivory satin, one toe sliding through the carpet. She was biting her lip and the sight of her teeth sunk into that pouting lower lip made him jump a little in anticipation. Her hair was in a perfect tangle over her shoulders and he could tell by the shape of her breasts that they were bare under the gown, and he stood.

"Baby, you look so beautiful."

She did a slow turn. "You think so?"

"I mean it. You were so beautiful in your dress and, wow..."

She grinned and came toward him, sliding her arms up around his neck. "You look really nice too, Ned."

He slid his hand down her side, to her thigh, and began to pull the gown up. "And you'll look even hotter out of this."

She pushed his hand away and went for the light switch.

He would have liked the light on, but it didn't matter; he had seen her nearly naked in her bathing suit, and there would be plenty of time for the lights later. She wasn't a virgin; she had confessed that to him after a long alcohol-soaked night at the club. A few times with her high school boyfriend. He had shrugged it off, hadn't bothered admitting the breadth of his own experience.

She giggled when he pulled the gown off, and that was cute. The sight of her, even obscured by the darkness, in her panties, pushed the tightness in his groin up a notch.

It was after the kissing, the slow caresses, the slow removal of her panties, once she was under him. It was the hesitant way she responded, the little mewling cries, the tentative feel of her caress. He pushed her knees apart, pushed his tongue into her mouth again, and his hand slid down to tease the curls between her thighs.

She didn't move when he entered her. She tensed a little and let out a quiet almost-sigh, and when he asked if she was okay she nodded, letting him push her knees up. Slowly he built his rhythm in her, cupping her ass and lifting her to a better angle, and when she winced he slowed, gritting his teeth to keep himself under control.

He wasn't going to think about Nancy on his wedding night. He wasn't. Wasn't going to remember her undulating over him, the wet heat of her inner flesh constricting around his cock as she rode him, flushed with pleasure and wonder at the sensation of their joining.

Laura restlessly moved her heels over the sheet, gasping when he thrust into her again.

He spent himself quickly, which wasn't difficult at all, and carefully slid off her. "You okay?"

She nodded. "Wow," she whispered, and smiled at him.

He tried to remember how it had been, that first time he and Nancy had made love. Tried to remember how awkward and strange it had been. He remembered her laughing, giggling when he kissed her neck, arching and groaning when he slid his fingers between her legs.

He looked at Laura, her legs tight back together, and mentally shook his head.

It would get better. He knew it would get better.

He kissed her, slowly, and then she finally responded, threading her fingers through his hair.

\--

Sloane could still somehow smell him in her hair. She had taken a quick shower the night before, after, but she woke still feeling mildly sore down her thighs. She should've washed her hair.

Nancy wanted to scrub every inch of her skin with a bottle brush and bleach. Or just start drinking everything in the minibar. Drinking was almost as tempting.

Sloane planted a brief kiss on Eri's cheek, and when he stirred, groaning as the light hit him, she pulled on her robe and went to the door, checking for the newspaper.

The right corner was folded.

She brought it in, smoothing out the crease, slipping out of her robe before the warmth of sleep had entirely left her. "Hey babe, I'm gonna go get some coffee."

"We have a coffeepot in here," he pointed out, but his heart wasn't in it. Then he brightened. "If you put some in and then get back in bed—"

Sloane grinned at him, hooking her bra. "Nice try. I'll just be a minute. Why don't you order us something awesome from room service and we can have breakfast in bed."

She hated the smell of her hair. She pulled it back into a severe ponytail and asked at the desk where the closest coffee shop was. Six minutes later she was walking in.

The knot in her stomach finally loosed, a little. Only a little. She was alone here, finally, and her awareness expanded, down the just-bustling streets, the open sky, a space that he wasn't beside her, pulling her apart like iron fillings to a magnet. Even if it was just in the space of her own head, she was herself again for a moment.

She ordered a large coffee and walked over to the condiment stand with it. A brunette, hair pulled back into a similarly strict ponytail, in tight pink running clothes, came up beside her, flipping through the disorganized magazines in the rack.

"He's going to a big meeting today and you need to get this on him."

A coin appeared on the countertop next to the sugar. Nancy picked it up slowly, studying it. It was dull, a little scuffed, but the weight didn't quite feel right. Of course it wouldn't.

"Tracker or bug?"

The agent flipped through an old home improvement magazine. "Bug. We almost have the subdermal ready."

The knot tightened right back up again. She was still against the subdermal. If he went to a very paranoid meet, a scanner would find it. Even the passive one they swore would be nearly undetectable.

"And if he spends it?"

"He spends it." The agent tossed her hair over her shoulder. Nancy toyed with another packet of sugar.

"Any idea what he's here for?"

"Considering the stepped up security, something big."

Nancy nodded. "He told me to bring a dress for tomorrow night."

"Meet me back here in the morning and I'll have some tech for you."

Nancy nodded, pocketing the coin, and took a long first sip of her coffee.

\--

"We should get a house."

Considering the number of boxes Laura was bringing into his already modest apartment, Ned couldn't help but agree. "Well, if we save up, maybe we can be in a house next year," he told her with a smile.

She was like a walking ray of sunshine. Just being around her made him happy. Watching her loosely clasp her hair in one fist, drawing it into a makeshift ponytail, then release it to tumble down over her shoulders again, put an actual physical ache in his chest. He put down the box he was carrying and pulled her into his arms, and she giggled when he dropped a kiss on her head.

"With plenty of rooms."

"Sure," he sighed, feeling her breathe against him.

"For all our kids."

He rubbed her stomach. "Surely you..."

"Maybe. Who knows?" she said, with a smile.

A baby.

He picked her up and kissed her, hard, and she returned it the way she did before their wedding night, slow and tender. When he boosted her against the couch she slid her fingers into his hair and laughed against his kiss.

"Want to take this in the bedroom?"

"Sure," she replied, and kissed his cheek.

_Sure._

He reached for her hand and led her, leaving all the boxes behind, waiting for them.

\--

Sloane looked at her reflection in the mirror, turning to the side and scrutinizing her silhouette. She ran her hand over her slender belly, frowning slightly. The dress, designed especially for her, emphasized her curves, the swell of her barely too-generous hips, the rise of her breasts, but nipped tight at the waist. She wouldn't be able to run in it unless she took the hem in her bare hands and ripped it all the way to the knee, and even then it would be difficult, in her ridiculously high heels.

"Sloane!"

"Yes?" she called back, an inviting, teasing lilt in her voice.

"We're _late_!"

"It's called _making an entrance,"_ she retorted, opening the bathroom door.

Eri sprang up from the desk chair, his eyes widening as he took her in. "That must be your new dress."

She did a slow, careful turn for him, pleased that she didn't lose her balance. "Oh, this old thing?"

He came over to her, his fingers warm through the thin fabric as he ran his hands down her sides, over the small of her back. She smiled into his eyes.

"You are the perfect distraction," he murmured appreciatively.

"So we're not going tonight?" she said, mock hopefully.

She had checked his pockets the night before, and the coin was gone. For tonight, though, she had to time things right. She was sure to grab her tiny jeweled clutch before he laughed and ushered her through their room's door, to Cam's ever watchful gaze.

They arrived when the sun was just at that perfect height, a liquid golden glare at the horizon. She was careful on her heels as she picked over the flagstones, her wrap sliding down her arms to her elbows. She could hear light laughter and glass chiming against glass floating on the breeze from the garden.

Eri was already a little tense. She wasn't sure exactly what was wrong, but she heard it in his voice, saw it in the swift impatience of his steps.

"Hey," she said, stopping with her hand on his arm, and he turned to her, his brow furrowed. "It's cool, honey. Just calm down."

He smiled at her, bringing his hand up to gently run a fingertip over an already perfectly arranged strand of her hair. "I'll try," he said, his gaze falling from her eyes to her earlobes, to the gorgeous teardrop diamonds he had bought her six months before. "It'll be easier if you promise me that you have something delectable planned for tonight."

She peered at him from under her lashes. "If you give me your black AmEx and let me leave the party thirty minutes early, baby, I will blow your mind."

He smiled, leaning in close to her. "After last time...? Oh, you will be lucky if you _ever_ see that black AmEx again."

What always shocked her at these things was all the people he knew, all the people who knew him. Their expressions were always faintly condescending when they fell on her, seeing Eri's blonde trophy wife, dressed in all his blood money. She responded with a lift of her chin, a permanent glass of champagne in her hand, and a warm, genuine smile every time Eri turned a smile on her.

She didn't look at his pants. The latest genius idea, courtesy the tech guys she had never met, had been for her to very carefully replace the button on his dress pants with a button holding a bug. Their rationalization was that even if he took his coat off, his pants should still be on. Nancy couldn't help but despair that, of all the times for him to stray, tonight would be that night. They were just that unlucky.

The other tech was worse. Nancy had to get him right before he snuck away for whatever meeting he was due to take, and plant it on him so subtly that he didn't notice.

When she finished her first flute of champagne she collected another immediately.

The garden was a heady swirl of colors around them, high enough to keep any prying eyes from seeing them, save for the agents doubtless watching them on infrared. The pool in the center of the garden had been covered with a brilliant piece of heavy translucent plastic, allowing the guests to literally walk on the water, and the rainbow of satins, silks, and sequins reflected in a swirl at their feet. Waiters shouldered unobtrusively through the crowd, carrying trays of canapes and champagne flutes at shoulder-height, and before they could make a full pass, their trays were already empty.Sloane saw a B-list actor with two supermodels on his arms and a third trailing along behind, and grabbed Eri's arm in excitement.

"Bet you're glad you came."

Sloane's gaze was still locked on the celebrity. "Think I could get him to notice me?"

"You?" He studied her from head to toe, a gleam in his eye. "Hell yes. Are you _trying_ to make me jealous?"

The corner of her mouth twisted up in a smirk. "Maybe a little."

After her fourth flute of champagne, she excused herself for the bathroom, making him promise to keep an eye on the actor for her. She knocked and walked in to find four girls staring intently into a hand mirror, carefully drawing lines of coke.

She had "met" Eri at a party that was a thousand times worse. The coke hadn't been limited to the bathroom, and the air had been a thick wreath of cigarette, cigar, and marijuana smoke around their heads. She had done coke with him a few times, managing through sleight of hand to switch her lines with a harmless substitute.

She didn't have any substitute with her.

Her stomach dropped a little, and she found another bathroom, unoccupied by similarly glassy-eyed anorexic dolls. When she was washing her hands she gazed at herself in the mirror, then found the pill she had brought to reduce the effects of the alcohol.

Nancy had to complete her mission.

Sloane was basking in the warmth of Eri's affection and desire, looking forward to getting him back to their room.

She had been Sloane for so long that Sloane was starting to feel almost real, like a part of herself that she didn't so much turn on as access, always running, always watching the world through her eyes. Sloane was the one who reached for a tissue, blotting the slight shine on the tip of her nose, high in her cheeks, making sure she still looked good for her husband. Sloane thought going back in that other bathroom and taking a hit sounded like fun, that finding a partially shadowed alcove in the garden and drawing Eri into it for a blissful few moments would be a wonderful cap to the evening.

Sloane was a fool who didn't care how Eri made his money as long as he kept spending it on her.

Nancy checked her purse one last time and headed back out to the party.

The crowd seemed to be almost entirely women, now. She found Eri with his hands in his pockets, absently juggling a few pieces of loose change, his gaze clearing when he caught sight of her.

"This shouldn't take long."

Sloane pouted. "At least tell me that hottie is still here to keep me entertained."

He made a face at her, as she slipped her fingers into her purse, behind the curve of her hip. "I have half a mind to take you in there with me."

Nancy immediately came to attention, but Sloane remained impassive, almost bored, and Sloane won when Eri's gaze was on her. "I don't need to be babysat," she told him, reaching for him. It was only natural for her fingertips to slide over the base of his neck, slipping the translucent disk out of sight underneath his collar. "But if you take too long, I'll just have to go back to the hotel and..." She toyed with his tie, then peered up at him through her lashes again. "Get into something more comfortable."

Eri let out a swift breath, ducking in to kiss her neck, inhaling the scent of her obscenely expensive perfume. "Race you," he promised, and with one last touch he was gone.

Sloane stared after him, ignoring everyone else around her.

Nancy wanted to wash the residue of his touch away. Scrub. Burn.


	4. Chapter 4

On his first day back at work after his honeymoon, after all the knowing glances and winks and punches and ribald comments, Ned sat down at his desk and logged onto his email, absently checking for new messages.

He touched the thick band of his wedding ring, still unfamiliar on his finger.

He loved being married. He loved waking up to Laura in the bed next to him, hair tangled, still soft with sleep. He loved making breakfast for her and he loved her making breakfast for him. He loved deciding what they were going to order out with her, and seeing her glee over coordinating hand towels or napkin rings in the massive haul from their wedding loot. He loved seeing her toothbrush next to his in the bathroom and seeing her shimmy into a skirt, loved hearing her key in the door when she was coming home. _Home_. Home to him.

The little things would work themselves out. Little things. Her hair in the sink and her toenail clippings when they hadn't quite made it to the trash, the way she could use five pans to make scrambled eggs and leave them all over the kitchen and ignore them for five days straight. Her stealing the covers. Little things.

And the sex would get better. The sex already was better

( _marginally_ )

and it didn't matter so much if she didn't quite seem to come, definitely not with him, if she looked like she was somewhere between long-suffering and a million miles away when he was making love to her.

(And he had already told himself that under no circumstance was he going to fantasize about... someone else, while he was in bed with Laura. No way. Absolutely no way. Whatever had happened was in the past, and was going to stay there, and eventually he wouldn't expect to feel her come, wouldn't expect to draw those whimpered half-pained gasps from her while he was inside her. He wouldn't.

Eventually.)

At least they were having sex, he told himself.

When his extension rang, he was so glad for a distraction that he picked it up before the first ring was even finished.

\--

It was somehow fitting that their breakfast that morning, brought in on still piping-hot plates, was scrambled eggs.

Eri had been incredibly cheerful ever since the meeting at the party. Whatever agreement he had come to with the other guys, and she still wasn't sure what that had been since she only ever gave out intel, he seemed to already be reaping the rewards, at least in his own head. Their house held more rooms than they would ever use, was decorated impeccably; he was talking about buying another on the sea, all glass and security system and breathtaking views. When she even glanced at something, he asked if she wanted it.

And Sloane loved every minute of it. She loved that he spent more time at home, with her, letting her model a series of more and more provocative lingerie for him, waking her with a hand plucking at her panties.

Nancy had almost incapacitated him with an elbow to the throat, one of those mornings.

She hadn't yet had time to shower, to rinse, to scour the scent and feel of him from her thighs, when the maid was bringing in breakfast. Sloane tapped the pepper shaker over her eggs and selected a forkful with the precision of the viciously hungover.

"This house is too big," he said, poking at his bacon strip. "For just us."

She glanced over at him, curiously.

"I know we said, right after we got married, that we were going to wait, but... I've been thinking about it for a while, and we should... maybe we should start trying for a family."

Nancy went immediately, completely ice cold.

Sloane's wide grin was genuine. "Eri! You really want to?"

He nodded. "I'm not getting any younger," he said.

"Oh, shut up. Like I am." Sloane stabbed a bite of egg; Nancy was no longer hungry, felt like she'd never be hungry again. "I have to go talk to the doctor about the birth control I'm on, ask if he has any tips—"

"Tips? By now I think we're experts," he teased her, taking her hand and drawing it to his lips so he could brush his mouth over her palm.

"Not like that." She wrinkled her nose at him. "This is so exciting!"

"And just think of all you'll be able to _buy,_ " he told her in mock glee.

"Well, there's that. Tiny Gucci heels or Armani suits."

Eri nodded. "Exactly. That's exactly what I was thinking."

After her brief but thorough shower, her thighs still pink from scrubbing, Sloane ditched her yoga and drove to the downtown pool. Eri insisted she should use theirs, but she told him that she liked to make a circuit of the machines, actually see a few faces that didn't belong to employees, to just get out of the house for a while.

She knew that the fiction that pools interfered with listening devices was just that: a fiction. Even so, she walked into the locker room with her duffel over her shoulder and walked directly to the northeast corner. The combination lock looked commonplace, and she had the code committed to memory. Swiftly she turned the dial, then opened the locker.

She saw exactly nothing inside.

That brief freedom she had felt while on vacation with Eri was gone now. She knew Ned was married, knew he had to be married by now. She knew that Eri, instead of scaling down his operations, was set to expand, that Sloane was going to reap the benefits.

She had barely seen home, when she had gone there. Hadn't seen her father or Hannah or Bess or George. She'd just thrown her time away on a last-ditch effort to convince Ned to reconsider.

She shook her head, disgusted at herself. Of course that hadn't worked; it was never going to work. Ned didn't owe her anything.

But, more than him, more than the painful memory of that last sight of him, she missed _home_. She missed waking up without having to immediately put a mask in place, missed how wonderful it was to say what was on her mind without her stomach immediately churning with panicked acid at the thought that she might have slipped.

She sat down and pulled a small notebook out of her purse, tore off the top sheet, and braced it against the hard wooden bench.

_He's talking about having children. Suggestions?_

She put it in the locker and closed it, twirled the combination lock, and headed for the shower. She ducked under the stream, rinsing off her sleek black one-piece, when she first wondered if the answer was going to kill her.

_Do it._

No. _No._ She couldn't. She wouldn't. She would walk away and burn it all down behind her if that was the response, she would do ten lines of pure coke before she would intentionally, consciously bring a child into the world with Eri as a father.

Under the water the world was dimmed, muted, and nothing could touch her. She cut through with clean swift strokes, her mouth set, and swam until she was almost sick with exhaustion.

\--

"Ned! _Ned!_ "

He was almost worried at the urgency in Laura's voice. "What's wrong, baby?"

"Nothing, nothing! Come on!"

He had barely made it through the door when she had his hand in both of hers, tugging him to the couch. She pushed him down to sit and he looked up at her, thinking that he might very much like whatever was about to happen. He let his briefcase drop to the floor and sat back, relaxing into the cushions.

His wife walked back in wearing a beautiful dress. Ned had never paid much attention to such things; he knew what he liked. Tight, sexy, gorgeous. It was all those things, a deep purple the shade of eggplant skin. Something shimmered at the lowest point of her neckline, as though his gaze needed any more encouragement.

"You look _amazing_ , babe."

She twirled, grinning. "You think so?"

"Definitely. So did you get a promotion at work or something?"

She turned back to him, her grin faltering a little. "I just got the new card in the mail today and this was just so gorgeous—"

"New card?"

She nodded, bending over her purse, and the sight of that alone was almost enough to drive his slowly budding fear out of his head. She returned and handed him a shiny silver card. Both their names were on it.

He flipped it over, absently. "We got a new card?"

She sat down on his knee, stroking a finger gently down the side of his face, her eyes wide. "You're not mad, are you, honey?"

What drove him crazy was that dissonance, between the sweet, seductive girl he had dated and the woman he had married. Experimentally he sucked her finger into his mouth, and she blinked at him, once.

What would she do if he shimmied that long sweeping skirt up her thighs and slipped her panties off? What would she do, when it wasn't her, her rules, her in her strategic nightgown with the lights off?

He sent the card flying toward the coffee table with a flick of his fingers and pushed her skirt up, stroking the lean muscle of her legs as he shoved the fabric up above her waist. She emitted a little squeak, shoving at his hands, but he threaded his fingers through her hair and drew her face to his.

"Ned," she gasped, when she pulled back from the kiss. She was blushing. It was adorable.

Then he saw the price tag.

\--

The card marking a doctor's appointment, scheduled for her, appeared on the refrigerator three days after Eri confessed his growing desire for a family. She pulled the card off the refrigerator thoughtfully and walked into his study after a soft knock. She wore her hair in loose waves, over a tight black shirt that cost more than a car payment and jeans that fit her like a second skin. He had to drag his gaze up, up from her feet, and by the time it found her face she knew what he was thinking.

It was exactly what she wanted him to be thinking, anyway.

She walked up to his desk, with its solid, reassuring bulk between them, and showed him the card. "So it looks like a little bird left this for me."

He shrugged. "I called in a favor," he said, looking up at her eyes. Like he was looking for her approval. "Did I jump the gun?"

"No, no," she reassured him, putting the card down. "And you're great. You're just so excited." She giggled. "I just want to go to my doctor."

"Can I at least call in a favor there, too?" He beckoned her with a crook of his finger and she walked around the desk.

Her body knew his. When she had been given this assignment, when she had studied his dossier and surveillance photos, when she had initially met him, she hadn't had to work too hard at the attraction between them. But she knew him, and he wasn't a suspect, wasn't a bad boy who might have a heart of gold, he was a ruthless calculating criminal. She felt no empathy, no sympathy, no desire for him whatsoever.

But that magnetic pull, the pull that had nothing to do with her brain or her heart, was undeniable. Sloane lived there, in the disconnect between what she wanted and what she stupidly desired, and Sloane traced the deep black of his thick hair, the perpetual stubble of his strong jaw, the smoldering sensuality of his gaze, and her lips parted a little.

Nancy hadn't been so blind, so foolish, since she was nineteen. She still wasn't. When she looked down at the man who had a possessive arm wrapped around her waist, she exuded a serenity and contentment she didn't feel, hadn't felt since—

(The path to that room, that thoroughly locked room she kept unlocking over and over but never quite stepping inside, was growing worn.)

She let her hand drift down the back of his head.

When she realized she was looking at him the way her heart was looking at Ned, had always looked at Ned, she was horrified to feel tears spring to her eyes, stinging there. She brought her hand up and dashed them away.

Eri took her hand. "It's all right. It's going to be all right."

She nodded, taking a deep breath. "Let me call and see if she can fit me in this week."

Eri gave her a little squeeze and released her. "And when you go, take Cam with you."

She swallowed. "Cam?"

Eri nodded, turning back to his computer. She glanced at the screen as long as she dared, memorizing what she could see.

"I don't want anything to happen to you." He gazed up at her. "Especially not now."

She nodded and touched his cheek again, then walked out.

\--

"Bess?"

He was wincing a little when he said her name, and he could hear it in his voice. He glanced up at his closed office door, rubbing his brow.

"This is she," she replied, low laughter in her voice. "Surely this isn't the late great Ned Nickerson."

"Late?"

"Forget it," she dismissed. "So what brings you— well, you know what I mean."

His screensaver activated and he shook his mouse, dismissing it. "How have you been?"

"Fantastic," she returned. "And your wife? Doing well?"

"She's— yeah. She's doing great. I really do have to get you to meet her sometime."

"I would love that," she said. It didn't sound entirely like a lie, but it made him uncomfortable nonetheless. Bess had reams of blackmail on him. "What do you need, Ned?"

He sighed. "How much do dresses usually cost?"

"Looking for something for Laura?"

"No. Not— not like that."

"Okay. For this, you get to treat me to lunch."

Bess looked good. He recognized that immediately, but he had always thought Bess was a beautiful girl. Her hair was flat-straight and she wore black with tiny white dots and retro eye makeup, and she had a knowing twist to her lips when she glanced up and their eyes met.

"I'm sorry," she said, as soon as he had taken his seat, "but I have to ask this. Have you heard anything about Nan?"

Ned was unrolling his silverware, and managed to grab his dinner fork just before it slid off the edge of the table. When he glanced up at Bess's face her gaze was narrowed and steady on his face.

He hadn't had to be a good liar in quite a while. He wondered if he was too far out of practice.

Bess took a sip of her iced water. "So that's a yes," she prompted him.

Ned sighed. "It— Right before the wedding."

"Tell me. Everything." Her gaze was riveted to him now.

Ned looked up with visible relief when the waitress arrived. "What can I get you to start?"

"What do you have on tap?"

After he ordered a beer, Bess ordered a strawberry daiquiri to go with her water. As soon as the waitress was gone, Ned had to grin at how quickly Bess's gaze snapped back to him.

"Listen. This was for _my_ problem, remember?"

Bess shook her head impatiently. "Less stalling, more details. I think I heard from her once in the past year."

Ned's brow furrowed. "Did you tell her I was getting married?— God, why does it matter."

When her daiquiri arrived, Bess scooped the strawberry off the dollop of whipped cream and ate it, eyes closing in bliss, discarding the top onto her cocktail napkin. "Did I tell Nancy you were getting married? It might've come up."

"Listen, you're not— going to talk about this or anything."

Bess held her hand aloft, three fingers up, thumb holding down her pinky. "Scout's honor."

"Does that count if you were never a scout?"

Bess made a hurry-up gesture, sliding a straw into her daiquiri.

"She... made contact with me and asked me not to marry Laura."

"Obviously she wasn't persuasive enough. And?" Bess took a long sip of her drink, and as soon as his beer was delivered Ned took a long sip in turn.

"And, that was it. I asked if she was coming back for good and she said no."

"If she'd said yes, you..."

"For God's sake," Ned said in irritation. "She didn't."

Bess nodded. "Okay. So that was the last time you heard from her?"

Ned nodded. "So how much do dresses cost?"

Bess tilted her head at the abrupt change in topic. "Depends on the dress," she said. "Are we talking upscale? Also, why, do you want to get a present for your honey?"

Ned took another long swig of his beer. "She already did. Get herself a dress. And we had a huge fight over it. She said it was amazing and she couldn't not buy it and everything, but I just don't—"

"How much was it?"

He said the number and Bess smiled, stirring the whipped cream into her drink.

"You're not freaking out," he observed.

"It was a nice dress, though, right? Deep color, well-done stitching, nice fabric, well-fitted?"

Ned shrugged. "It looked good," he said.

She chuckled. "Is that a lot to spend on a dress? Sure. Did she lie about how much it cost? Probably not."

"I saw the tag."

Bess pushed an empty coaster toward the salt shaker. "And you are finding this so irritating because..."

"Because she took out a new credit card, in _our_ names, without even mentioning it, and then she goes and spends, like, half a rent payment on a dress, and it's not even _for_ anything..."

"Not even for you?"

Ned let out a frustrated sigh. "I don't _care_ what she wears. She looks gorgeous in sweatpants and a tank top. I mean, if we'd been talking some cute little nightgown or something, but it wasn't that, and..."

"What's irking you?" she asked, softly. "That she did it, or that she did it without asking you?"

"Both?" Ned drummed his fingertips on the table. "And then she just acts hurt, like _I_ did something wrong."

"Obviously she didn't get that it was going to piss you off."

Ned shook his head. "Did you ever see the rest of your life in front of you and know how it was going to be, and then, something comes along and it's all gone, all of it..."

The waitress came back for their orders. As soon as she left Bess sighed.

"If she knows it upsets you and she does it again... then yeah, get upset. But for now it sounds like you're looking for some reason to get mad at her."

"Because spending money we don't have is good. Because she keeps saying she wants more, a bigger house, more clothes, a better car..."

"Everyone does," Bess pointed out, then frowned. "Although I don't know why I'm defending her. Guess someone has to."

Ned sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't mean... I haven't seen you in a long time and all I do is flip out."

Bess smiled. "That's what we're here for."

The rest of their lunch was filled with the usual boring bullshit, but it was Bess, so he actually paid attention when she told him about her work (boring but she met fascinating guys and George came by once a week to kick her ass and keep her in shape) and her plans for the next long weekend (maybe a little hop over to the Hamptons because she had a feeling she would look perfect and maybe even pick up a great guy at one of those crazy parties, and besides she could crash with Eloise).

The Hamptons. He shook that off without letting the train of thought reach its inevitable destination.

He picked up the bill over her protests and when they parted at the door she gave him a light air kiss an inch away from his cheek. "Look, if you hear from her, let me know, okay?"

Ned shook his head. "I really don't think I'm going to..."

Bess smiled. "Really? Because, Ned... I don't care if you're married, or whatever. That doesn't just make it not real anymore, you know?"

He shrugged. "Kinda."

She patted him on the back. "See you around."


	5. Chapter 5

Nancy was awake at four o'clock in the morning. She was in a long grey t-shirt, face scrubbed clean, and she had listened as the house went quiet and still around her. Eri had come to bed at midnight, rubbing his palm over her belly in silent hope, brushing his lips over her navel. Thankfully he had snuggled into her hip and gone to sleep soon after, and she wasn't sitting in the dark with her skin crawling at the sensation of his touch.

She was so lonely. She was so unbearably lonely and she hated him, but when she closed her eyes his skin was just skin against hers and she could imagine that he was someone else. As long as she was quiet, as long as she didn't make a sound, as long as she didn't release the scream that had been building, thrumming in her chest since the two nights she had spent with Ned in Berlin, she could let herself feel it. She could feel her heart, all of her, vibrating with want and need and despair.

She would find someone else, when this was all over. She would find someone she could love, someone who would let her have even a modicum of control again, and just luxuriate in being able to say what she was thinking and make her own decisions again.

If he opened his eyes _right now_ and glanced up at her, asked her _what's wrong_ , she would say, _I'm just so worried about the baby._

And she was.

What she had given Ned, what she and Ned had done together, would be nothing in the face of carrying Eri's child. Absolutely nothing. And she would be swallowed by it, by feeling a life grow inside her, a life she could imagine nothing but hatred for, and that would tear her apart.

She had let Eri in and he had seen every part of her, every inmost part of her, and it was all a lie, but this. Oh, this.

She thought then of what she would do, if her contact said _It's for the best, better than a subdermal, the best blackmail we could ever imagine_. She imagined grabbing her purse and walking out the door, taking a cab to the airport and from there flying as far and as fast away from this as she could.

But then, she could hear it already, _well, at least we learned a little, for those_ years _she was married to him._

And what would she fly _to_ , anyway? Back to Chicago, to River Heights, to Bess and George and Hannah and her father, whose own lives had swallowed up the space she had once filled for them? To a deserted beach where she could bronze her pale limbs and scream herself back to sanity?

Just the thought of it, though, just the thought of getting away, into anything, into nothing, was enough to fill her with nebulous hope. Maybe _he_ —

(oh, what was the harm)

—maybe Ned wasn't waiting for her, but that didn't mean she had to stay here.

Eri shifted against her leg and she thought of three ways she could immediately, silently kill him without anyone hearing even the faintest sound.

She would say no. She would just say no and that would be the end of it.

_And just tell Eri it must not be in the cards._

Her face flushed and she cried, as silently as she possibly could, waiting for him to wake. She wanted a pair of arms around her, someone to tell her that she was all right, that she would be all right. But Eri's arms were a prison.

Her whole life was a prison.

She dried her eyes with the collar of her shirt and forced herself to slide her hips down the bed, her head to the pillow, her husband's body against the length of her own. Maybe the name on the certificate hadn't been hers but she had said those words to him, heard them in return, the words that should have meant everything but had meant absolutely nothing to her.

She closed her eyes.

_This is what you wanted._

__   


_I never wanted this._

When she woke he was gone and she was grateful from the bottom of her heart for that. She put on her least alluring pair of underwear after her shower (he had bought her all of it; _least_ just meant no lace or mesh) and a pale yellow belted top and tailored black pants. When she looked at herself in the mirror she was too aware of the almost bruised look of her eyes, and she looked like a bumblebee. But she was careful with her makeup and she slipped on a pair of bracelets and a set of cascading necklaces and she looked marginally better.

"You'll come right home after? Tell me everything?"

Sloane grinned into his eyes. "Of course I will. I'll call you. And if we have good news...?" She raised her eyebrows invitingly.

"If we have good news or if we have bad news we are going to Savatelle tonight. But we will have good news." He patted her stomach lightly.

She had notified her contact, via a scrawled message on a cup sleeve, that she wouldn't be alone for the meeting. Even so, her nerves were jumpy. Cam drove and she rode in the back, keeping her hands and eyes busy with her cell phone, feeling his gaze on her every now and then.

She had known for a long time that Eri had her tailed. She had known that Cam was often the one to do it, when Eri didn't need him personally. Eri had made noises about people in his business and men who might be angry at him. Once she had heard a scuffle behind her and had been too afraid to turn around; once she had seen Eri, enraged as he strode from his office to the garage, hissing epithet-laden orders to his entourage, and had stayed up waiting fruitlessly for him to come home.

But of course Eri would be paranoid about her, more visibly so now, if he wanted her to have his child. His wife was an excellent target; his child would make a far more visceral one.

Cam's gaze flicked to her, away from her in the rearview mirror again.

It was, really and truly, a doctor's office, and the doctor in question was going to be her hypothetical obstetrician. A nurse ushered her into the examination room as Cam waited and glowered from behind a year-old magazine in the waiting room, and as Nancy changed into the backless gown, she glanced at her purse and saw a cassette player there that hadn't been there before.

She picked it up and fitted the earphone into her ear, then pushed the indicator from cassette to radio.

"Agent?"

"Yeah," Nancy replied, softly.

"We didn't want to risk direct contact, after your warning."

"What's the decision?"

"The less risky decision is to stop your birth control and let whatever happens, happen naturally. In the event of infertility we would ensure that treatments were ineffective, but barring that, you would be on your own."

"And the more risky one."

"To continue with the least intrusive birth control method possible. But in that case the subdermal will be imperative."

Nancy put her head down, rubbed her forehead. "The subdermal is a terrible idea," she muttered.

"But the intel we could discover through it would be invaluable."

"And how exactly do you think you can make that kind of incision look like an accident?"

"Just like you just said."

Nancy placed the voice on the other end of the line as Agent Thomas, who had been her contact for the majority of her assignment. She just wasn't used to hearing him without seeing him. She couldn't claim that she was all that close to any of her contacts, but he was the closest she had to someone she would call a friend.

"Agent, are you determined to make a decision about this today?"

Nancy swallowed. "I'm not intentionally having his child. I'm not going off birth control for this. If you want to do the subdermal, whatever, whatever you want to do, just be careful, but no."

Thomas sighed. "When the doctor comes in make sure your wedding ring is on your thumb."

\--

"Hello?"

"Hi, Ned?"

So his caller ID hadn't been lying. It really was Laura's brother, whom he hadn't seen since the wedding. "Steve."

Laura hadn't really mentioned him, when they were dating. She had told Ned a few stories, like the time she and Steve had tried to wash their enormous German shepherd and chased him around the neighborhood and ended up in a vacant lot, covered in mud. Whenever Laura spoke about him in any tone other than nostalgic, it was almost cautious, guarded.

But Steve wasn't the family favorite. Laura definitely was.

"I'm in town for a few days, wondered if maybe you two wanted to get a drink."

"Sure," Ned said easily, without considering why he was getting the call instead of his wife. "Tomorrow night? Skye Bar?"

"Great. I'll see you then."

Ned didn't really understand the phone conversation that followed, with Laura. She said she had already planned on meeting one of her sorority sisters for dinner (which she hadn't brought up before, at all, whatsoever; he would have remembered that) and if he wanted to go that was _fine_ (in a tone that meant the opposite). Their argument over the dress and her continued defensiveness over it still smarted, and he said that he would.

Even though he barely knew Steve and didn't really relish the idea of making pleasant conversation with his brother-in-law. When he casually mentioned that he'd be heading to the bar after work, a few of his co-workers, mostly the ones trying to suck up to his boss, started getting interested.

Nothing specifically about Steve looked _off_ , but Ned, while he was shaking hands with him, had the distinct impression that Steve would pitch him something and he'd be an idiot to go along with it. He wore his shirt open at the neck, no tie, half-inch of a pocket square showing, but his complexion was ruddy where Laura's was delicate.

"So what brings you to Chicago?"

"Had to make sure you're treating my sister right."

Ned thought uncomfortably of Laura's indecision right before their wedding, after his partial confession about Nancy, and wondered if Steve knew.

"Doing my best," Ned said with a smile.

"She really is a great girl."

"She really is." There was something Ned almost wanted to call bitterness in Steve's tone, but his face was open, almost bland.

"So what's your drink?"

"Johnnie Walker," Ned said, taking a seat at the bar.

"Bacardi and coke for me."

Ned associated Johnnie Walker with work events, nights that went from some vague excuse for networking to slurringly calling a cab to get home and waking wishing for death. Before that, though, it had been the drink that his frat brothers would tease him for preferring, for ordering, in parties that were fueled by the bottom-shelf vodkas and rums and tequilas. The taste of it on his tongue had made Nancy's face twist a little, but—

Ned looked at Steve and raised his glass after they received their drinks.

"To Laura."

Just thinking the words _not going to think about her_ were enough to irritate him. He wasn't going to think about Nancy. Saying it enough times would make it true.

She was supposed to fade like a wound, damn it. He had married someone else and she wasn't supposed to matter anymore.

But no matter what their history would still be there, waiting for him, like the hit of Johnnie Walker against the back of his throat.

Steve did eventually make his pitch, for a stock trading system that was "totally one hundred percent guaranteed, there is no way you won't make money," but what drew Ned's attention after his polite dismissal was the way Steve talked about their family, how Laura deserved everything because she was such a good girl, just a genuinely good girl.

Ned felt defensive at first, but he softened. He had been too hard on her about the dress, the card. She hadn't meant anything by it. And she did deserve it. They deserved it. He would just make sure she understood that it might be a little while but he would give her everything he could, everything she wanted, to make her happy. A baby, a house, white picket fence, everything. And he would be happy, to see her happy.

He liked that idea. He liked the image of her by his side, her hand tucked into his. In the mood he was in he even liked those conservative nightgowns she favored and the way she would definitely chastise him for drinking when he got home. Laura was the kind of girl he was meant to be with.

Ned and Steve ended up at a table with four of his coworkers, and Steve bought the first round of shots, eyeing the marks with a smile. Ned took his shot and mug of beer and downed them swiftly, slamming the heavy-bottomed mug on the table with a triumphant cheer a split second before anyone else did.

Three beers later, when Ned was staring at the grimy tile in the men's bathroom, not even quite yet dreading the frosty look that he would see in Laura's eyes when he walked through their front door, he figured it out, with that slow certainty alcohol brought.

He was still waiting for Nancy to come home.

Even though he hadn't heard a single word from her since he'd left her sleeping in his bed four days before his wedding, even though he had meant every word of the vows he had spoken to Laura, even though he was determined

( _resigned_ )

to enjoy the rest of his life with his wife.

Ned shook his head as he zipped up his pants and headed to the sink. One day he probably would see her again. She had had her chance, she had made her choice. He had done exactly what she had told him to do, and there was absolutely no reason for him to feel so terribly shitty about it.

And he owed it to Laura to work through this, to not give up after their first hurdle. Certainly there would be more, other problems, other fights. The first year, first six months, were supposed to be the hardest.

He could feel himself starting to sober up a little, and ordered another round on his way back to the table.

\--

"I love you."

Sloane gazed at him from across the table, her eyes alight. "I love you too."

Eri took her hand. "So, anything we should be worried about?"

She shook her head. "We can get started right away." She ran her thumb meaningfully down his palm.

He smiled. "Well, if our entrees don't come soon enough, I may take you up on that."

The restaurant was humming around them. She wore a tiered dress in black lace and satin, the underskirt in nude silk that showed through the lace. It was cut tight to emphasize her curves; it was the kind of dress that Eri loved, the kind she reminded him she wouldn't be able to wear for long. He was in an immaculately tailored dark suit, and he had been gazing at her with adoration in his eyes the entire evening, the way he usually did. Eri had some kind of stake in Savatelle; all he had to do was walk in and a table would be made ready for them, even if the line of customers was spilling onto the sidewalk. It was so easy to accept, to take his casual power for granted.

He pushed his chair back, reaching into his pocket. Even though they were married, even though she wanted nothing quite so much as his nearly lifeless body twitching at her feet, her heart still jumped a little in her chest as he presented her with a long velvet box. A gift in exchange for her giving up a little more power.

"It's gorgeous," she breathed over it, touching the large, clear blue stone reverently. He deftly freed it from the box and stood behind her, slipping it around her neck. The metal and setting were cool against her skin, his fingers warm against the base of her neck as he fastened the necklace.

He returned to his side of the table, smiling. "Not quite so gorgeous as you."

The necklace. The necklace triggered something but she knew, she had to bury it. She slipped her foot out of her shoe and ran her toe up and down his leg, and smiled as he shifted.

Nancy dreaded going back home with him. Most nights she could just let herself forget for a while, let her mind drift, but he was going to be intense tonight, and she didn't know if she would be able to let herself float away from it the way she always wanted to do. When he mentioned that he would love to have a son named after him, over a rich slice of cheesecake drizzled in raspberry sauce, she nodded and smiled and agreed instead of saying that picking names might be premature. When he slipped his hand between her thighs in the car, his fingertip tracing the tops of her stockings and the ribbons of her garters, she squirmed and giggled, drawing his face to hers for a long kiss.

When Eri's mobile rang, Sloane was half over his lap, her fingertips sliding up his neck, squirming against his touch. He scowled at the interruption and they ignored it, but when his phone rang again, he answered it, and she was disgusted and gratified to hear that he was a little out of breath.

"Yes?"

She was so close that she could hear the voice on the other end of the line. "We have him here."

"Anything yet?"

"No. Not yet. Do you want us to work on him before you get here?"

Eri tilted his head. "No. Leave him. I'll be there soon."

He hung up and immediately he was latched onto her neck again.

Nancy didn't know why she was suddenly convinced that he knew, that he had someone important to her ( _Ned_ ), but it was all she could do to slip back into Sloane, to unbutton his shirt and arch against him.

Eri pulled back. "Did you see anyone following you earlier, darling?"

Sloane sat back a little, studying his gaze. Nancy was cold and still and terrified.

"I didn't," she said, "but I thought Cam would be looking out for me."

"He was." Eri brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "But you didn't see anyone?"

She shook her head. "Is everything okay?"

"It will be." He kissed her and she closed her eyes and Nancy felt herself shrink cold and hard and silent inside.

When they pulled into the garage, Eri and Sloane parted, and Sloane tugged her skirt back down over her knees. "I have to deal with this," he told her. "Just for a minute. I want you to come with me."

She widened her eyes at him. "Are you sure?"

He nodded.

The entire way, as she followed him, she kept telling herself not to make a move, any hint that she would recognize the person his men had caught, any indication that she was so close to losing it. She kept her face composed and clutched her small bag and followed him as he led the way downstairs.

Downstairs. The cameras weren't even hidden here. He stopped in front of the closed door to a room she knew he used as another study. The knob turned easily in his hand. Nancy swallowed hard; Sloane reached for Eri's hand.

It was obvious to Nancy what the room had been used for, before. Half the space was carpeted, appointed with lush butter-soft-leather sofas, a huge widescreen television, a bar with crystal decanters. The other half of the room was done in concrete with a drain in the center of the floor, a stainless steel counter set with various knives and tools, a hook hanging from the ceiling.

He hung from that hook. A man, head bowed, a rivulet of blood down his cheek. His hands were bound and attached to the hook, and his shoulders were pulled at a terrible angle, emphasizing the lines of his ribs. His chest was bare but he was still in a pair of suit pants, belted, dress shoes whose toes hung a few inches above the floor.

"Name?" Eri asked the three men waiting, one of whom was a glowering Cam.

"Hasn't said."

Eri walked over and grabbed the man's head by his hair, yanking it back upright. Slowly he opened his eyes.

Nancy had known from the second she walked in that the man wasn't Ned. She wasn't sure what she had feared more: that she would know the man, or that she wouldn't.

But she did know him. His gaze met hers and she let only the faintest sympathy show in her eyes for a fraction of a second before she set her face in Sloane's usual neutral, half-distant expression.

"Who are you?"

The man shook his head, all his attention on Eri now. "I don't know what your deal is, man, but what the hell is going on here?"

"Your name."

Eri's voice had that low, deep chill in it, the one she had only heard a few times. "Tim Sullivan. What's going on?"

His name wasn't Tim. His name was Riley Harrison. She had had meets with him at least four times that she could remember. Once at the pool, twice at the coffee shop. She had seen a nondescript sedan outside the doctor's office, had known an agent was inside without looking too closely. It had probably been him.

When Cam accused Harrison of waiting outside the doctor's office, waiting for her, and when Eri asked him what he had been doing, Nancy wanted to die. Because Eri was going to kill him. It would be slow and it would hurt, down here in this soundproofed murder room of a basement, and she didn't know what he would say, if he would gasp and pant out the truth in an effort to save his own life before Eri took it with a quick bullet to the head.

She tried to think of something, some plausible lie to tell, as Harrison protested his innocence again and again, even when Cam wandered over to the counter and came back with something and she looked away as she heard the first sickening crack and crunch of parted bone and torn flesh, the high, terrible sound of his scream.

Eri walked over to her. Harrison's harsh keening breaths sounded almost like sobs.

"You don't want to see this," Eri told her gently, and Sloane shook her head.

Nancy didn't want to see it. But it would be worse, knowing what was going on but never really knowing, being afraid that he had given up something about her. Knowing that he was only being hurt because he had helped her.

"Why don't you go upstairs and wait for me," he told her, cupping her chin in his hand, giving her a slow kiss. "Put on something nice."

Harrison's gaze didn't rise to hers before she left.

Halfway up the stairs she stopped, her hand on the bannister. There had to be something. Something.

Protocol said that she was supposed to leave him, to walk away, give absolutely no indication that she had ever seen him before in her life. Protocol told her that her part in this mission was more important than his and his life was more expendable than her own.

But she didn't care.

But there was nothing she could do. Not this time, not before. Absolutely nothing.

She went up to the dark bedroom and slowly took her dress off, slipped out of her stockings, unfastened her garter belt, all the while listening for screams she would never hear. She dug through her lingerie drawer until she found a delicate pink babydoll and pulled it over her head, arranged her breasts, scrutinized her reflection in the mirror, the stone still hanging from its chain around her neck. She touched the cool blue teardrop and it came back to her again.

He might come upstairs and kill her, quick, a bullet to the head. He might come upstairs and drag her down to that terrible basement by her hair and kill her by inches over a week of thousand-year days. Or he might come upstairs and make love to her like nothing had happened, and she would never _know_.

She sat down on the edge of their bed and let her gaze go soft and unfocused.

For the first time in a long, long time, she let herself remember Berlin.

\--

It was the alcohol. It was the same strange circumstance, bringing a cab home and riding the elevator car with his head still swimming from the shots, keying open the door. His mind was playing tricks on him and he had been thinking about Nancy, just for a second. When the door swung open he half expected to see her turn to him again, in that damn blue dress again, waiting.

But Laura was waiting.

With a glass of red wine at her elbow, the bottle in front of her.

Laura didn't drink wine. She didn't drink much of anything.

Ned shut the door quietly behind him. "Honey?"

Laura turned to face him and her green eyes were colder, angrier than he had ever seen them. "What the fuck is this, Ned?"

The box was in front of her on the table.

He knew it was the wrong thing to say when it was halfway out of his mouth. "What the hell are you doing with that?"

She glared, defensively. "I was looking for something in the closet."

"Bullshit," he said, before he could stop himself. "That was—"

And he finally did stop, and she stood, dipping her hand into the box. He wanted to slap her hand away. He wanted to scream at her.

She pulled out a handful of pale yellow silk. "What is this? And don't you dare say it's for me, because _I can still smell her on it._ "

She threw it and it struck him near the hip, fell to the floor. He bent to pick it up and had to hold onto the back of the couch for balance, to keep from falling down beside it.

"Laura—" Ned's voice was low and dangerous.

"And _this_?" She pulled out the ring, the small diamond in the plain smooth band, and when she threw that it skittered over the floor into a dark corner across the room.

He grabbed her hand, but not too hard. "Do you _want_ to listen to me or—"

She let out a short, bitter laugh. "What could you say?" she asked, pushing herself up to stand and face him. She was still a good six inches shorter than he, but the rage in her expression was nearly enough to make up for it. "Have you had enough time to come up with a good lie yet?"

Ned glanced into the box. Five or six folded sheets of paper that had been unfolded. A cheap strand of silver links, a milky green stone set in a cheap pendant looped over it, in the bottom of the box.

The letters.

She screamed at him after that, even after he said _it's old, it's from a long time ago,_ and she said _then why do you still have it, why is it still here in_ our _house, why did you keep it_ , and he had no answer for that. She swung at him and he ended up pinning her to the couch and her face was wet and red and her eyes were burning with anger up at him. When they heard an insistent knock at the door he let her up and answered with a pasted-on smile and reassurance that everything was all right.

After that she snatched up one of the letters and they ended up ripping it in half when they scrabbled over it, and at some point her nails raked against his cheek, at some point he grabbed her hard just above her elbows and shook her once, hard, angrily. She said he didn't love her, that he never had, that he was a bastard and she never wanted to see him again, and when she slammed the bedroom door and locked it he broke the lock with three hard kicks, driven by rage, and picked her up and threw her onto the bed.

"I _hate you,_ " she screamed at him, crying. "Get the hell away from me. Get the hell off, get out of here before I call the cops."

And he stopped, staring at her, and slowly pulled himself off the bed, still gazing at her. She sat up, panting, the color high in her cheeks, but he saw no softening in her eyes.

"It was a mistake," he said, softly, the only thing he could think of to say, even though it was a lie.

"Get. Out." She pointed at the door, chest heaving under her shirt.

He found the ring in a dusty corner, and he put the gown almost reverently back in the box, let the fragments of that letter drift back down over it before he closed the lid.

He walked out but every step was harder than the last. He knew he shouldn't leave her if he wanted to work this out, but he looked at the box in the passenger seat of his car as he drove away and knew, it was that or her.

And when he closed his eyes to go to sleep that night he found himself remembering Berlin.


	6. Chapter 6

Marie had three hours before he would be coming in to the Berlin airport. She had already gone over the room, silent, her belly humming in anticipation. She had arranged the travel-sized soaps and shampoo and conditioner, had already put her toothbrush and toothpaste next to the sink. She had gone over her makeup and gone over the cheap clothes she had brought with her. For a second she thought fleetingly of the one-shoulder pleated cream dress that alternately hugged and flowed over her and wished for it, but it wasn't here, it wasn't hers.

On the way out of the hotel she asked the clerk if any clothing stores were nearby.

By the time she was waiting for John at the airport, dark hair pulled back into a high ponytail, sunglasses shading her eyes as she scanned the arrivals list, she had a paper bag hanging from her right hand by its twine handles, sprays of white tissue paper peeking from the top.

Then she saw him.

For him, there was no disguise. For him there was no wig, no careful disguising of the lines of his cheekbones, the shape of his brows. His dark brown hair was trimmed neatly but that same lock kept falling forward, over his brown eyes. He wore jeans and a blue button-down and a wheeled suitcase bumped along behind him, and when his eyes met hers, the widest smile she could ever imagine crossed his face. His long legs ate up the distance between them and she ran to him, not caring at who was seeing, whose eyes were on them.

"Hey," he said, the paper bag bumping into his back as she threw her arms around him, holding him tight. His suitcase smacked to the ground beside them but neither of them cared.

"Hey," she whispered, burying her face against his neck as he held her so tightly that it was hard to draw a full breath. He smelled the same, God, and even that was enough to bring tears to her eyes. Their embrace ended slowly, reluctantly, and even after they released each other she immediately reached for his hand, found it already seeking hers.

"Check anything?"

He shook his head and they headed out to the street, to the line of cabs and buses, the sea of bewildered tourists and irritated businessmen, headsets already jammed into their ears.

"Do you want to walk?"

He shrugged. He looked at her and thought that what he very much wanted to do was to see her face scrubbed of all that garbage, wanted to see her hair and eyes normal color, wanted to feel her bare skin under his palms as he kissed her. When they stopped at a streetcorner, waiting for the light to turn, he released her hand and she turned to him and he slid his fingers into her false hair, drawing her face to his.

He was kissing her on a streetcorner in the middle of Berlin, and she couldn't have cared less who was watching.

She stood on her tiptoes and slid her arm around his shoulders, and the feel of his tongue against hers, the taste of him, after so long, made her weak in the knees, made that low hum of anticipation in her belly swell to a throb between her thighs. Someone cleared his throat and she stepped back, nervously touching the edge of her lips, making sure her makeup wasn't smeared. His hand found hers again and they walked across the street.

The sun was high but showing between the clouds. Her German was rusty and his was worse.

But her hand was in his and it was the best day either of them could remember in a long, long time.

In front of the park in the center of town, just a block away from their hotel, an old man in a trailer was selling shot glasses, bumper stickers, beer steins. A tangle of necklaces and earrings hung from a line beside his window. "Souvenir?" he asked invitingly as they passed.

John stopped and looked at her, raising an eyebrow. She shrugged in response. Anything they bought, she couldn't take. Everything they had together she would have to leave here, behind her.

"What do you think?"

John spoke English because it was easier and the man answered in kind, lifting the strand of necklaces. "This would be real pretty on her," he said, selecting an amber pendant, the deep color seeming to glow from within.

But John knew what she looked like, _really_ looked like, and he selected a smooth green pebble shot through with marbled gold. The old man smiled and accepted the bills John handed over, and John put took the tag off and moved behind her, fastened the chain around her neck and ran his fingers down the links, to the pendant, just above her cleavage.

They walked through the hotel lobby holding hands, catching each other's gazes and smiling, and the clerk just smiled at them. In the elevator they stood with their arms against each other, the inner flesh of their wrists touching.

He nodded at the bag still dangling from her fingers. "What's that?"

"A little something."

"For me?"

"In a manner of speaking."

He reached for it, poking through the folds of paper. Pale yellow silk trimmed in ivory lace.

"Hmm."

In their room she took the bag into the bathroom with her and took the wig off, placing it carefully on the sink. She stripped off the stiff new jeans and cheap t-shirt, the bra and panties, and as she worked the makeup remover over her face, her brows lightened, her cheekbones grew fuller, her eyes brightened. She took out the brown contact lenses and put them away in their case. She took a quick bath with soap and a washcloth, brushed her teeth quickly, dabbed perfume between her breasts and behind her knees, and then put on the thin yellow gown.

When she opened the door to the bathroom, Ned was standing there, shoes toed off, cuffs loose, belt and coat across the chair. His gaze started at her toes and made its way up, over bare knees and pale yellow silk, the pendant still hanging from the chain around her neck.

"Nancy."

She closed her eyes, a flush of pleasure rising in her at the simple joy of hearing her own name on his lips. Her eyes were blue again, her hair long and red-gold and falling down to her shoulder blades, cut to frame her face. Sloane's wedding and engagement rings were safe but no longer on her finger, and Nancy was glad for the lightness.

"Ned," she whispered, as he crossed the room to her, as his fingers touched her face. He kissed her slowly, the taste of fresh mint on his breath, and she breathed in the masculine scent of him, cologne and sweat and shampoo and him. She arched her slender body up against his and felt him groan in response, his weight pushing her back against the doorframe. The end of their kiss was slow, lingering, his fingertips curling against her side.

"Be right out," he murmured, and she managed the few steps to the bed and sat down, facing the bathroom, her mouth still warm from his kiss.

She wasn't sure how long they would have. A day, maybe. If they were lucky, two. It had been so long since he had touched her that her skin ached for contact with his.

Soon. Soon Alvarez would get the bug in place and they would find out about Eri's latest deal and then, with any luck, this would be over. She was so tired of it all and she loved it when Ned looked at her and saw her, really _saw_ her, and she didn't have to hold back with him. She loved being able to ignore the terrible fiction of her other life for a while. She just wished she could feel sunlight on her face, could walk out with him in the city, could wear the necklace faithfully until she saw him again. But she couldn't even wear it until the moment before she saw Eri again. Her lookalike was keeping Eri's surveillance busy but they still couldn't take any chances; even meeting Ned like this was a terrible chance.

She saw nothing else to keep her rooted to the earth, nothing else to keep her in the terrible charade of her false marriage, anything other than this.

Then Ned opened the door and, just as he had before, she let her gaze start at his feet, work upward. His legs were bare; he wore a pair of black boxer briefs, the grey band slung low on his hips, and when he flipped off the bathroom light her eyes had to readjust to the darkness. She stood and saw her name on his lips and reached for his hand, and just the touch of his skin on hers, the hesitation before the pads of his fingers stroked down her palm, her wrist, the tender inner flesh of her forearm, made her shiver in delight.

Ned stepped close and dipped his head to hers, and she tipped her chin up and their kiss went from tender to hungry in a heartbeat. He reached down and his fingertips skimmed up her thighs to under the gown, the backs of his fingers brushing up to her hips, but there were no panties there for him to find, to draw down her legs. His palms slid around to grasp her ass, and he backed her into the bed, her fingers in his hair, her tongue in his mouth.

"Baby."

"Say my name," she whispered, as he picked her up, her legs sliding around his waist.

"Nancy," he murmured, climbing onto the bed with her. "Nancy."

"Ned," she sighed in response, and his hips shifted against hers and he could feel the heat between her thighs even though his briefs. He laid her down and pushed her gown up above her hips, and as she locked her ankles at the small of her back he bent to her again, her nails gentle down the back of his neck as their mouths met again. He pushed himself up on his knees and shoved his briefs down, and when he settled back against her his cock was flushed, firm between them, pressed against the join of her thighs.

She was panting against his ear when she whispered, "Can I be on top?"

In answer he pulled her up, and her gown fell back over her naked thighs as he stood in front of her. He shoved his briefs down the rest of the way and she crossed her arms, catching the hem of her gown in her fingers. She pulled it off and tossed it onto the chair, with the rest of his clothes, and he pushed his knees between her thighs and then flipped onto his back, his arm around her waist to pull her with him. She giggled, her hair falling forward as she straddled his waist.

"For a little while, anyway," he told her, reaching up to cup her breast.

He loved having sex with her, any kind of sex he could have with her, but their first time once they were able to meet was always too fast, almost brutal with need. She pushed her knees apart and rubbed the wet flesh between her thighs against the length of his cock, and he pinched her nipple, urging her down to him for another kiss. He grasped her breasts and she slanted her mouth hard against his, whimpering when the tip of his cock brushed her clit. She ground her hips down hard and he grabbed her ass and she arched over him, lifting her hips so she could curve her fingers around his cock and angle him between them. She let out a low desperate moan as she manipulated his cock so the tip rubbed against her clit and he groaned in frustration, his nails running over the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs as he slipped his hand up, pushing one finger, then another, up inside her.

She was already wet, so fucking wet, for him, and when she cried out into his shoulder, her hips grinding above his, he plunged his fingers into her a few more times and then drew them out, slick with her arousal. He grasped his cock and angled it so that he was just barely inside her and she took him almost immediately, with one shivering thrust of her hips. She arched up over him and she was barely gleaming with sweat, and he closed his eyes and pushed up under her, into her, groaning at the pleasure of it, of feeling the tight slick heat of her sheathe his cock.

She planted her knees and pulled back, and they both moaned. His hand groped between her thighs and she bit her lip, her brows drawing together as she pushed down, taking him into her again.

"Nan."

He wanted more, more, and she was whimpering, her hips circling as he stroked her clit. Her hair was touching his shoulders and then she tossed her hair back, tossed her head back and planted her palms above his shoulders and fucked him, hard, and she was so wet that he could hear the sound of their joining over her small cries and his own harsh breath. He dug his fingers into her ass hard, and she ground against him as he came with a harsh cry, pulsing against the tight press of her center. He kept one hand at the small of her back and found her clit with the other, and she collapsed against him, her hips still moving in small circles over his as she trembled with the slow beginning of her orgasm.

He was too keyed up to make it slow and she was begging, pleading in harsh gasps against his ear as he stroked her clit. He kissed her neck, her shoulder, as she rubbed her breasts against him, as her voice rose into higher and higher gasping cries. He dug his thumb hard against the sensitive button of flesh and she came with a desperate whine of pleasure, her hips jerking in instinctual rhythm against his.

They slowed gradually, faces flushed, skin slick with sweat and arousal, panting their breath back. She pushed herself up on her elbows and gazed down at him, her red-gold hair a curtain around their faces, the necklace hanging between them.

"Hey," she whispered, and bit her lip. She was smiling.

"Hey," he replied, bringing his hand up to cup her cheek.

"Do you want to go get something to eat?"

He glanced over at the bathroom. "Will you have to put all that shit back on?"

She nodded, her gaze shifting away.

"Then let's order something."

He took the first shower, quickly, just in case the deliveryman was early. She put her gown back on and put the robe next to her but didn't put it on. Her thighs were still slick with them and her hair smelled like him, and she smiled, running her thumb under the necklace, letting the pendant rest against it. She could never wait to get Eri's scent off her. She loved smelling Ned on her, like he had claimed her, like she was his and his alone.

When he got out she walked in, noting the interest that lit his gaze when she stripped the gown off. She washed her hair briskly, rinsed her thighs with reluctance, and she heard Ned brushing his teeth on the other side of the curtain.

Her heart ached at how utterly domestic it felt, to be so close to him, so intimate with him, even without the sex.

When she emerged from the bathroom, her hair newly blown out and falling light and soft over her shoulders, Ned was just closing his wallet and a hot pizza was in its carton on the table. She was in a cheap white cotton bra and heart-dotted panties; she pulled a loose navy shirt over her head and walked over in her bare feet, pulling open the carton.

"Only one?"

"We can always get something later. Besides, it's an extra-large."

"Still." She giggled as he caught her around the waist, nuzzling into her neck from behind her.

The knowledge felt like a weight in her throat as they devoured the pizza, leaving a scant few pieces in the box, a dubbed broadcast version of an old movie playing on the TV. When she had washed the grease off her fingers, she thumbed the remote to turn down the volume and looked at Ned.

She shouldn't say it. She knew that. She shouldn't.

"I think it might be over soon."

"Really?"

That his expression was guarded, even if it was happy, almost broke her heart. "Yeah. There's a... well, if what we're about to do works, it might just be a few more months."

Ned grinned. "God, Nan. That would be... man."

She put her arms around him. "To be in Chicago? To have some real pizza, to see all of you again..."

"An actual date where we could walk around outside," he mused, his face against her hair. "Where I could wake up in the morning and you'd still be there."

She smiled. "If you still want that."

He pulled back. "You know you're all I've ever wanted."

She studied his gaze. "I know I've been gone a long time—"

He shook his head. "I don't care. I don't care how long you're gone, baby. I love you."

He lowered her to the bed and she laughed when he pulled her shirt off, her chuckles fading to quiet gasps as he tugged her panties down, as he freed her legs and pushed her knees apart, kneeling over her, his breath hot on the damp curls between her thighs, making her shiver. He went down on her and she pulled off her shirt, unhooked her bra, pitching them into the corner, sighing as the tip of his tongue dipped between the folds of slick flesh inside her, arching hard as he flicked her clit, her palms sliding up to cup her still-tender breasts, to tug at the sensitive tips of her nipples.

Ned, her lover, the only man she would ever love, brought her to a slow intense screaming orgasm, and she shoved her face into the pillow and cried out, her back arched, chest heaving as he stroked her with his fingers and his tongue. She trembled and begged him to stop, every nerve ending in her entire body screaming sensitive as he nipped at her clit, and she writhed under him, arching until the crown of her head was flat against the bed, crying out as she trembled with another orgasm.

Then he groped at his waist and when he pushed himself up over her he was naked from the waist down, his cock standing against his belly as he angled into place. She let out a high squeal, already tightening against him as he thrust his cock into her, swift and hard. She groped at the hem of his shirt and pulled it off, craving the feel of his bare flesh, and she scooted down on the bed and he pulled her hips to fit to his, his large hands pushing her knees up to her chest, his cock driving into her again and again, deep as he could go.

He couldn't believe how wet she was, how wonderfully slick and tight she was. His weight pressed her into the mattress as he fucked her and she folded her arms around him, boneless, powerless under him, her hips instinctually pressing up to meet his with every thrust. She found an angle that put pressure against her clit and screamed, burying her face against his shoulder, whimpering his name as he made love to her, because this was love, not what happened in her cold marriage bed, not the terrible lie between her and Eri.

With a groan Ned sheathed himself deep between her thighs and she shivered, coming again as she felt him pulse inside her. They trembled together, her knees up, and she was lain bare, completely exposed to him, and he to her.

She touched his cheeks, her breath against his neck, and closed her eyes, and he kissed her temple, slowly, his lips lingering on her skin. When he brushed his mouth against hers she parted her lips willingly, the taste of her arousal still on his tongue. His cock twitched once inside her as she slid her hand into his hair, and then he pulled back, gazing down at her.

"Tell me you love me," he whispered, and his voice was hoarse.

"I love you," she said softly. "I love you so much, Ned, you know I do. I will never love anyone the way I love you."

He buried his face in her hair and she ran her nails down his back, down his spine, and he jerked a little when they swirled over his ass.

"I love you," he whispered into her cheek. "I love you, baby. Nancy."

They made love until they were sore, spent, muscles complaining, thighs aching, fingers cramped. She relearned the taste of him, of his sweat, the texture of his nipples under her tongue, the ridges of his cock as she took him in her mouth, the salt of his seed in her throat. She gave him a hickey on his neck like a teenager, his stubble rasping against her tongue.

And he kissed every inch of her, touched every inch of her, until just the barest brush of his fingers over her belly could make her twitch and arch in anticipation. He took her from behind, took her against the wall, in the shower, in the armchair, until her hair was a soft tumble down her back, her lips flushed and parted, her fingers clawing for purchase against him as they joined, rough, hard, gentle, patient, again and again.

She delighted in the novelty of being able to sleep beside him again, and while she was asleep he would curl up behind her, his face against her back. When he woke her she was already wet at the thought of him, and when he moved inside her, still spooned up against her, shallow and gentle, his fingers stroking between her legs, she closed her eyes, her hand over his to press him against her, and tried to memorize him, the prickly heat that rose under her flesh as her arousal consumed her, the pull of his embrace as he made love to her. They made love lazily, speaking only in moans and sighs, falling asleep joined and waking just to begin again.

The yellow gown still smelled of her, of them, when he plucked it from between the mattress and headboard, a day and a half after his arrival. His bags were packed, his face freshly shaved, but he still craved the sensation of her skin against his, after being in contact with her for so long. He had been in Berlin but had barely seen any of the city; the trip from the airport to the hotel was a blur in his memory, punctuated only by the purchase of the necklace.

When she opened the bathroom door, Marie was back in place. Her hair was dark, her eyes brown. All that remained of Nancy was the pendant around her neck. She lifted it, the stone against her thumb, and gave him a slow, bittersweet smile.

"Keep it for me," she told him, as he stood, slowly, the gown still in his hand.

"This?" He nodded at the silk gown still crumpled at the foot of the bed.

She shook her head. "Have to throw it away," she said. Then she smiled again. "First thing I've bought with my own money in ages."

He stood and pulled her into his arms, drawing a deep breath. She smelled of soap and shampoo and perfume, but he couldn't smell himself on her anymore. She hugged him back, hard, and sniffled, chuckling a little.

"I'll see you soon," she said, kissing the point of his jaw, then wiping the trace of her lipstick off with her thumb. "And don't you dare make me cry or I'll have to redo all this and it will take forever."

He lifted her off her feet, holding her tight. "I miss you, so much," he whispered. "I'm going to miss you so much."

"Not as much as I'll miss you," she told him, her voice husky with restrained tears. She kissed his other cheek and his mouth found hers, makeup be damned, and she kissed him back, hard. When his hands started grazing for her hem, the tops of her thighs, she made a soft reluctant noise and pushed his hands away.

Then she reached behind her neck and pulled the necklace off. She took his hand and let it fall into his palm, then closed his fingers over it.

"Keep it for me," she whispered.

 _Like the ring_ , his eyes said without saying.

Ned took the gown and pushed it into the outer pocket of his suitcase, looking up to see her smiling at him. "What," he said defensively.

"Nothing," she said, reaching for his hand again.

She fixed her lipstick in the cab, and with every passing second he felt himself growing almost desperate. He held her hand tightly, but that was all right; Marie was John's girlfriend and he was leaving.

"I love you," he told her, when he saw the airport sign.

"I love you," she said, cupping his jaw in her palm. They kissed and soon she was half in his lap, his fingers digging into her through her clothes, seeking contact, another second, another touch. They parted reluctantly just so they could get out of the cab, and when they were in front of the ticket counter she stepped into his offered arms without another word.

"Soon," he whispered, against her ear.

She nodded, her lashes thick on her cheeks. "God, I hope so," she whispered, squeezing him tight.

It physically hurt, to let each other go. His chest was tight, her eyes were swimming, and he caught her hand, bringing it to his mouth for a kiss.

"I'll see you soon."

She nodded, but their hands stayed joined.

And they both thought it, at the same time. _What if I don't get on that plane, what if I just run away with you, I don't care if we never go back, I don't care where I am as long as I'm with you._

But neither of them said it.

_Soon._

She forced herself to smile and he forced himself to smile in return. "You should go," she whispered. She squeezed his hand. "Go live your life."

He smiled. "Not until you get back."

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him one more time. "Go on," she told him. "Before I do something stupid."

He squeezed her hand and barely brushed his lips over hers. "I love you."

"I love you too."

He got in line, and when he glanced back, she wasn't where he had left her anymore. He was just turning back when she glanced back at him, her hand on the door, a single tear streaked down her cheek. Their gazes met and held through the crowd, and all his breath was stolen in that moment. He wanted to run to her, to pull her into his arms and never let her go.

She stood transfixed, as the crowd flowed around her.

_Soon._

He turned back toward the counter and when he glanced back again, she was gone.

\--

And when Nancy opened her eyes and saw Eri standing over her, it felt like losing Ned all over again.

And when Ned opened his eyes and saw the box standing on the table beside him, the first weak light of dawn coming blue through the blinds, it felt like losing Nancy all over again.


	7. Chapter 7

Nancy woke the next morning with exactly one thought before Sloane was in place:

_I'm not dead._

She opened her eyes and Eri was beside her. When a spring creaked under her he opened his eyes and smiled at her a second later. "Hey," he said, touching her arm.

"Hey," she replied, snuggling in close to him, her face in his shirt.

"No nightmares last night," he said, the barest question in his voice.

She shook her head, the tip of her nose brushing against his chest. "Nope. Very good dreams."

Either he knew or he didn't. She had to act like, had to believe that he didn't know, that Harrison hadn't given her up.

_How long until there's another one?_

They parted when the maid walked in with the breakfast tray. Nancy's breakfast included a large glass of orange juice and a prenatal vitamin pill, thanks to her dietician. With a mental shrug she took the pill and washed it down with the orange juice.

She went through the day trying not to think about Ned, and trying not to imagine the basement, the drain, the glint of metal behind Harrison. She was in a fog during her yoga class, as the women around her arched and twisted, as the teacher encouraged them to listen to their heartbeats and relax. She listened to her heartbeat. She listened and kept pacing through the same thoughts, over and over.

If he knew, she was dead.

If he didn't know, she was a mistake away from him knowing, but she always had been. He would find out, or this would end; there was no alternative. She would _not_ spend the rest of her life here until Sloane was all she knew, until Sloane was who she became. The thought of celebrating another ten birthdays here, of forging pregnancy tests and fertility tests and ovulation tests and blood tests, of another year of feigning passion for him, letting him put his hands on her—

For the first time she let herself think the word _divorce_ , and loosed a short laugh she covered with a cough, as she transitioned into the Warrior pose.

She went to the coffee shop after, and when her cup came up it had a green sleeve on it. While she sat at her table and pretended to play with her mobile, she idly pushed the sleeve off the cup and parted it with a flick of her thumb.

The code was carefully stenciled to look like some computer gibberish. She mentally translated it, slowly, fighting the impulse to look out the window, to study the cars, to see who Eri had sent to watch her.

It would be ready by Friday.

It would be while they were together. She knew when that would be, too; he had a dinner Saturday and she was going with him, in a clinging metallic sheath, to look pretty on his arm and nod and smile and wait with the other wives while he vanished into an interior room. There would be another bug for the dinner, and then, on the way back, that was when it would happen, when the driver was a little tipsy and blinded by the glare of headlights in the rearview.

They said this would be it, that with the subdermal in place they could get him, turn him, have him in their pocket. But she wouldn't be around to see it, not once his tenuous hold on her was gone.

They always said it would be just a few more months, just six months, nine at the most.

_They say it'll be over soon, Ned. Just a little while longer._

She closed her eyes and she could almost smell his cologne, and a shudder passed over her, desire and despair all tangled up inside her.

Nine months. Like hell.

_Let it take its course._

She would never be out of here, never out of this. Not unless she walked away herself, and she wouldn't bet on making it more than a day. For the first time she started to wonder what was next, if the prospect of a pregnancy was even on the table. After they put her so deep, what would it be? Would she have to seduce one of Eri's friends or business associates, the next guy up on the chain?

Maybe they would let her go home.

She closed her eyes, allowing one small traitorous wave of exhaustion and longing sweep over her. Maybe she and Ned could be friends, again—

But that was a lie. They had never been friends, never just friends. She couldn't remember a time that the sight of him hadn't made her heart beat faster, a moment that she hadn't wanted to bury her hands in his hair and draw his face to hers. And that wasn't okay anymore. He had Laura, and he was happy with Laura.

_But he was happier with me._

Nothing had changed for her. Nothing had changed, other than her slowly growing horror. Her love for him, her need for him, had only grown since Berlin.

But something had changed, for him. Maybe he had grown tired of waiting for her, after so many assurances, so many promises broken. He wouldn't have married Laura unless he did love her; Nancy was sure of that. And she wanted him to be happy. She did.

But the thought of never kissing him again, of never waking to see him next to her, of never hearing his voice warm with concern over another phone line, made her feel the same despair she had the night before, waiting for Eri to walk into their bedroom and damn or save her. Maybe she would fall in love with someone else but to lose Ned entirely... _that_ would damn her. That was more of herself than she had ever agreed to give up.

She had to hear his voice, see his face, meet his gaze, something. Had to.

She forced herself to open her eyes and look down at her mobile. She still knew his number by heart.

But this was as terribly reckless as she had felt while they were in Berlin, listening to that soft, seductive voice telling her to leave Eri and this nightmare behind and just run away with Ned. She tried not to think about what would have happened, if she had walked back to him, if she had taken his hand and led him away and not looked back.

She had been through all the permutations, all the different ways. She couldn't believe he was out of her life forever. And maybe he was stronger than she was. Maybe he would make her good, keep her from doing something they would both regret.

If she ever saw him again.

She sighed. No matter what, she swore to herself, she would see him again. Even if it was to tell him that she wished him well, even if it was just to let her fingertips brush his again. He was the only reason she had made it so long without losing her mind. She would just hold him a little while longer before she let it go for good.

She put Sloane back on like a coat of armor and stood, crumpling the sleeve in her hand before tossing it into the trash.

\--

"I just— I can't do this anymore."

Ned stood in the doorway of their bedroom, arms crossed. Their argument and his anger had left the frame splintered a little at the jamb, and a splinter dug into his hip. He didn't feel it.

Laura had her suitcase open on the bed and was dumping clothes inside. Her face was puffy from lack of sleep and crying, and he distantly remembered hearing the soft cadence of her voice through the door before he had left the night before. On the phone until God knew what hour in the morning, probably telling one of her sympathetic friends or her mother what an asshole he was.

He should be mad. He knew that. On some level he was frozen, incredulous, scared to death, watching his wife pack, hearing her threatening to leave him.

He didn't want to be alone. He couldn't let her walk out that door.

But it didn't feel real. None of it felt real, not with the soft bittersweet taste of Berlin still in his mouth, his fingertips. The last time Nancy had been real to him.

He had believed her. He had waited, and waited. And he had loved her, so much.

But it hadn't been enough.

For that second in the airport, though, it had. It had been enough. Just the thought of being with her, anywhere with her, anywhere at all, had been enough. All he wanted was her.

And then she had walked away.

Ned blinked and looked at his wife. "Baby, don't go."

Laura tossed her blonde hair out of her face. "Are you actually happy, right now?" she asked him, and for the first time Ned could remember, there was no hesitation, no measuring in her words. "Have you _been_ happy these last few weeks?"

And Ned, in turn, thought about it, thought about saying _except when we're in bed_ or _except when my stomach twists up because I'm checking the mail and I'm afraid you've run up another bill_ , but he just looked at her. "I'm sorry. It's just... this is harder than I thought it would be."

She nodded. "Yeah," she said. She jammed a hoodie into the suitcase and flipped it closed.

"But we can't fix anything unless you stay."

She glanced up at him again. "I just need a little break, to think about this," she said, and sighed. "I think if we spend some time apart that will help."

"How?" he demanded, as she began to pull the suitcase past him. He was afraid to touch her. "You just want to run away?"

She looked at the box still on the coffee table. Then she looked back at him. "Really?"

"I..."

She shook her head. "Give me a few days," she said softly. "And when I get back you better not have that anymore."

\--

It was always a temptation, later, to try to trace back to where it had all gone wrong, to mentally take back the mistake. Nancy had done it before; other agents did it a thousand times, teasing out the threads until they reached that one moment, in the hundreds, the millions of moments a mission took, finding that one crucial decision, the _yes_ instead of _no_ , the look of recognition instead of the bland impersonal smile.

Harrison wasn't her fault. Even after everything, she had been sure that Harrison wasn't her fault.

But it was soon after, maybe in that week after. Maybe that awful night of the dinner and the accident, the driver babbling in apologies and Eri screaming, black pants gone blacker with blood, face white. He had clutched her hand so hard in the hospital, and she had _known_ the orderly was an agent, that if this didn't work it was all over.

She didn't see the subdermal go in. She was out in the waiting room and Cam was pacing near the door, the bulge of his gun holster under his arm, his face set and grim as he waited for the doctor to give them news.

The orderly walked out again, gloves bloody, and Nancy saw Cam's gaze go from her to the orderly.

Maybe she was just tired, so damn tired of it all. Weary of having to walk into that room and smile and act concerned when all she wanted to do was pick up the phone handset and strike him once, hard, across the bridge of the nose, send fragments of bone deep into his brain, drop the bloody plastic and just walk away. Fuck their plans and their insistence and their demands.

But it was probably Cam.

And, later, much later, when she was half-delirious and her mouth was sour with the copper taste of her own blood, she thought it was then, in the hospital, with Cam's gaze too sharp on her.

But by then it didn't matter. Not anymore.

\--

Ned contacted Laura every day, while she was gone. Even if their only communication was the exchange of short meaningless text messages, he knew that if he let a day go by, if he let himself drift any further, she might never come back.

And the weightlessness of Berlin, that lingered at the edge of his vision, like a word only breathed, like a desire he wouldn't let himself name. He cleaned his apartment and found an earring in the junk drawer that he remembered dangling from Nancy's earlobe; he found a faded ticket stub from a movie they had seen together, a zippered sweatshirt that still smelled like her perfume. He put it all in the box and once he was confident that he'd found everything, he took the box downstairs and put it in his trunk.

But he couldn't get rid of it.

He tried. After work he drove around to the dumpster behind the office and stood with the box heavy in his hands, the door slid open, fetid flyswarm darkness behind. But he wondered, suddenly, illogically, whether someone from his work would go through the trash, whether the box would fly open while the truck emptied the contents and the yellow silk that still smelled like her would flutter through the air, land on the pavement. He wondered if the box would tip and the ring would slide through a crack, down into the hot nightmare of rusted metal, wedge into a corner and remain there.

More than all that was the memory of her face when she had said it, when he had tried to give her the ring.

_if I come back to you in one piece, if you still feel the same way about me_

He was married to someone else.

He could still remember the way he had felt when he had bought the damn ring. Palms sweating, warmth under his collar and flushed down his chest, believing that if he just found the right one it would make her say yes, knowing even deeper that she never would.

It hadn't been like that, with Laura. He had taken her along with him and she had picked one out, squealed over it, admired it on her slender finger.

He wondered if she was still wearing it.

On the way back to their apartment he called her, and felt that same flush of nervousness, the way he had when he had called her number for the first time to ask her out.

"Laurie?"

"Ned."

Ned swallowed hard. "Do you want to go out this weekend?"

He hadn't meant to say it, and the quiet noise she made was almost enough to make him hang up. "You mean like a date?"

"Yeah, like a date. Nice dinner and everything."

She was quiet for a minute. "Where did you have in mind?"

It wasn't all there in her voice, but a hint of that flirtiness had crept back in. He smiled. "Maybe that place that just opened, the one you said sounded good?"

She said she would, but only if he promised to dress up, and when Ned hung up the phone, he was grinning.

For the first time since she had walked out on him, his heart wasn't sunk below the floor.

\--

Eri refused to use his crutches. Nancy hated that, because she liked the idea of him on crutches, more defenseless, announcing his arrival. Sloane just chastised him and said he should use the crutches even if his leg wasn't broken; it would give him time to heal.

The doctor had told him that he had nicked an artery, and they had had to do surgery to correct it. He was supposed to be taking it easy, but three days later he had been on a plane to another meeting

( _and who knew, maybe it had been then, maybe he had walked through a metal detector and winced when it alarmed and discovered it then_ )

and she had been left at home, with the dietician and the cook and the housekeeper and her yoga classes and the pool, and even though Cam was gone she could still feel eyes on her, following her, making sure she was where she was supposed to be at all times.

That terrible urge to call Ned always felt like it had passed until she was alone and unobserved, in the locker room at the pool, in the dressing room at the boutique downtown. She would take out her phone and stare at it until she was trembling with need, like a fifteen-years dry alcoholic with a beer in front of her. She never dialed his number, never let it get that far.

Later, when she knew she was dead, she wished she had. She wished that she had taken the risk, even if it was just to hear his voicemail, anything. Anything at all. Sometimes in her delirium she imagined that she had, that he would sense her distress, her terror, and burst through the door with a hundred armed men at his heels, coming to save her. That he would take her in his arms and tell her he loved her, that he always had, that he wouldn't _let_ her keep risking her life this way.

But she put her phone away, skimmed her hair back, scrutinized her reflection in the mirror and flipped out Eri's card to pay for it, adjusted the straps on her swimsuit and dove cleanly into the water.

And the night he came back from another trip she was waiting for him in a new black and white dress, glowing, and when his gaze fell on her she saw none of what was to come, no anger, no rage, no blank apathy.

But he didn't see those things when he looked at her, either.

He took her hand. "Any news?"

She shook her head. "Guess we'll just have to try a little harder."

"That sounded like a challenge."

\--

When Laura walked into the restaurant, Ned couldn't look away from her. She looked utterly gorgeous. She wore a dark grey skirt and a cream-colored top, and her eyes were bright, her hair tied back in a loose bun. She tucked a loose wavy strand of her hair behind her ear and stopped at the hostess's desk, but then she saw him, and her face softened.

He stood when she approached the table, and handed her the roses he had kept out of sight beside him. She took them, slowly, and blinked hard.

"I'm so sorry, baby."

She put the roses down on the table and smiled at him, over the candlelight. "I'm sorry too," she said.

As soon as they sat down, he reached for her hand. "Come home with me tonight," he said, stroking her knuckles. "Come back home with me."

Laura pushed back her hair again. "I... Is that what you want?"

Ned nodded, hard. "If that's what you want. I've missed you so much, baby, and I was such an idiot. I'm so sorry."

Laura moved her hand under his. "I..."

The waiter approached and asked for their drink orders. When she tried to pull her hand back, he tightened his grip a little and she left her hand in his.

"I did a lot of... oh, God, I don't know." She looked down, then tipped her head back up and peered at him through her lashes. "I talked to everyone."

Ned almost groaned, but caught himself in time.

"And they kept telling me that this is the hardest part, that if we get through this it will get easier. I just... I thought we would be like my mom and dad, you know?"

Ned nodded. Her parents were fine. But just being under their scrutiny made him want to check his fingernails, to tuck the tail of his shirt in, like a child.

"But... I guess it won't be like that. Not for a while. And I guess I just— I mean, Ned, did you keep that stuff because you're still in love with her? Are you still seeing her?"

Ned shook his head. "I'm not still seeing her. I swear. And I don't know why I kept it; it wasn't... it was just that I forgot it was there. And that's all. Really."

Laura smiled at him. "So we'll just... I don't know. Just start again. And it will be better."

"Yeah," Ned agreed. "Baby, I love you so much."

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "Me too."

Laura came back with Ned, that night—all her clothes were already back in the car; his speech and the roses and everything had just been to make himself feel better, he guessed—and they split a bottle of wine and she told him that she'd missed him while she'd been gone, that it was just so much harder than she had ever imagined this would be. And they would make it work. She was sure they would.

The wine made her giggly, flushed, and they were in the living room, mostly not watching some stupid fifteen-year-old comedy, when he first pressed his mouth to hers. She met his kiss and returned it, hard, standing up on her knees, letting out a little moan when his fingertips skimmed to the bottom of her shirt, hooking under the hem to slide it up and off her.

It was the sight of her on her knees that made him shimmy that skirt up her hips, as she pushed weakly at his hands and laughed out her protest. He nudged the side of her panties down her hip and then caught them in his teeth and tugged them down a little more, and her fingers slid into his hair, pressing against his scalp. When he glanced up at her she was even more deeply flushed, her wine-red lips parted, and he kissed her hip and pulled her panties the rest of the way down.

He was shocked, a little, when he first kissed her navel and she parted her legs, urging him down. He had never gone down on her; he had never imagined that she would like it, that she would do anything other than protest and squeal in embarrassment.

But she shuddered under him, her little whimpers of pleasure rising into hoarse desperate cries as he explored her, dragging the tip of his tongue over the sensitive folds of flesh between her thighs, over the firm button of her clit. He slid two fingers up inside her, thrusting into her as he teased her clit, and her hand tightened in his hair.

And she came, jerking underneath him, panting and sobbing in pleasure, her wet flesh pulsing for the first time against his fingers, and when Ned pushed his pants down and slid into her, groaning at the feel of her, tight and slick around his cock, she tensed a little under him, arching.

"I love you," Ned whispered, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and breathed against his neck as he plunged into her, again and again. "I love you so much," he sighed.

"I love you too," she whispered.

And the next month wasn't perfect, even though he took her to bed whenever he could, even though she made dinner for him and he brought her flowers and they talked the way they never quite had before. They still fought, a few times, and while she curled up close to him in bed, she was never the one to initiate.

And that box was still in the trunk of his car. Sometimes he wondered if he was just waiting for her to find it.

Sometimes he wondered why he just couldn't get rid of it.


	8. Chapter 8

Nancy hadn't felt it. She was almost in awe of that. Sloane had gone to sleep after Eri had rolled off her, wincing a little at his still-tender leg.

She woke with her hands cuffed behind her. She was still in the cotton gown she had gone to sleep in, still smelled of sex. And then her arms were wrenched up behind her back and even before her eyes fluttered open, even before she sucked in a pained breath, she knew exactly what she would see.

Cam. Cam's face, almost gloating, pleased.

The butter-soft-leather couch.

The drain under her feet, cool tile under the very tips of her toes, but the floor was too far away to support her weight. The sockets of her arms were screaming.

She ran her tongue along her teeth.

"Cam, what the hell is going on?"

It was okay for her voice to waver a little. Sloane's voice would waver a little.

Cam's terrible smile just grew a little wider, as he stepped back.

Eri. Eri was standing there, where she hadn't been able to see him, his arms crossed.

Nancy's heart felt like it stopped beating.

Eri uncrossed his arms, took a step forward. "Go ahead," he said quietly, and Cam took his switchblade out.

"Cam, please—"

He cut the gown off her. He cut her panties off and then ripped them away so rapidly that she felt friction burn on the inside of her thighs. Her legs drew up a little and her arms screamed in protest, until she had to point her toes and put just the barest weight there.

Eri closed the space between them, slowly. She noticed the faintest outline of a new bandage on his leg. So he had found it. No hint of a limp, no pained wince. So maybe that had been a lie too.

She let her gaze rise to his, confused, afraid, just slightly edged in anger. And when she started shaking she couldn't stop.

"I don't know who you are—"

"Sloane! I'm Sloane, your wife, we're married—"

Eri looked back over his shoulder. "Get it off her."

Her ring finger ached after Cam wrenched the rings off, and her stomach was a sour ball of fear. Before, taking those rings off had always meant she was—

She didn't let herself think about it.

"I don't know who you are," Eri began again, and when his gaze traced down her naked body she felt that impulse again, to curl up, to shield herself from his view. She had never felt so terribly dirty. "But you're going to tell me everything. I want to know who you work for. I want to know what you were sent here to do. And you're going to tell me."

"Eri, please, I don't understand," she began to plead, tears streaming down her face, her mouth trembling, "please, just, we need to talk about this, I don't understand, please just let me down, get me down from here—"

Cam dragged the switchblade slowly across her lower ribs and she sucked in a startled breath, trying to shy away from him, pleading Eri with her eyes. She would do anything. She would do anything to get out of here.

Because Eri's gaze wasn't softening, it was ice cold, and she already knew she was in more trouble than she ever had been before.

"Sloane," he said quietly. "Cam, here. He tells me that you've been acting strangely, and I believe him."

Her eyes darted from her husband to the glowering man whose knifepoint was digging into her flesh. "Acting _strange_? Like what? The baby, the wreck, everything, Eri, please, just— just tell me. I don't understand. I— Do you not love me?"

Eri crossed his arms again, looking down. "I'll be back tomorrow. And if you haven't changed your mind about this, Cam... will do his best to make sure that you do."

Eri motioned for Cam to follow him, and they walked out, leaving a single spotlight on her, naked and starting to shiver in the chill.

_Tomorrow._

She ran her tongue around her teeth, and started working on the cuffs.

Less than a minute later, two of Eri's usual thugs walked in and stood at the door, staring at her, contempt and frank ribald appraisal in their eyes.

She moved only gently against the cuffs, testing them, and she didn't even know she was crying until the first cold tear dripped onto her breast.

It didn't matter what she said to Eri. She could get one of the guards to bring him back and tell him _everything_ and she would still leave in a body bag.

So it was up to her.

She set her teeth in her lower lip and twisted, and the cuffs bit hard into her wrist, painfully sharp and hot against her flesh.

They didn't give at all.

A sob rose in her throat and she didn't have the strength to choke it back.

__   


_\--_

__   


Laura walked in that Tuesday night and all Ned wanted was to relax, order out, pull her into the circle of his arms and just forget about the rest of the day. His boss had been giving him grief over a project that hadn't been his to deal with in the first place, and Ned hated babysitting coworkers, hated the condescension of constant reminders and nudges. If they were good workers in the first place, they wouldn't need it. The secretaries had offered to order out for lunch, but by the time Ned had realized his order had been misplaced or given to someone else, it was already two o'clock, and so he had just grabbed a candy bar from a vending machine and let it go. He was starving and tired and his head was pounding a little.

Laura put her purse down on the bar, went to the refrigerator, closed it without pulling anything out. She ran her hand through her hair and walked over to the couch, slowly, but her gaze was on the floor.

His first panicked thought was that she had used her spare key to his car and opened the trunk, found the box still there.

"We have to talk," Laura said, quietly, still not looking at him.

Ned kept his gaze on her face, his heart painful in his chest. His hunger evaporated.

She sighed. "Did you ever see it, how you wanted everything to be, perfect, and then you realize it's never gonna be like that..."

Ned swallowed painfully, remembering his conversation with Bess, what seemed like years before. _"Did you ever see the rest of your life in front of you and know how it was going to be, and then, something comes along and it's all gone, all of it..."_

"Sometimes," he said quietly.

She brought her hands up, started twisting one in the other. "I never wanted this to happen," she said, and she let her gaze rise to his knee.

And he knew what she was going to say before she said it, and he could feel that terrible anger rising in him again.

"I met someone."

"Is it that asshole Andrew?" He hadn't even been aware that he was thinking it, wasn't even aware that he was shaking until he saw his hand trembling from the corner of his eye. "What do you mean, you _met someone_?"

Laura glanced up, finally. "Please, please, don't be angry, I swear I didn't want this. For as long as I can remember this, _you_ , were all I wanted. I just..."

"It's Andrew. Isn't it. How long, Laura?"

She shook her head. "It isn't Andrew."

Ned had to keep unclenching his fist. It was hard.

"It was— we had that fight, and I was upset—"

A month. For a month she had been in his bed, in his arms, after she had slept with someone else. And the anger that rose in him was a thousand times more terrible because he had felt it every time he had seen Nancy after her assignment, and it just built and built, finding no release. He stood and he knew he was flushed with anger, from the look in her eye, the way she took a step back.

"I love you," she said, a tear slipping down her cheek. "You have to believe me. It's just, she—"

_She._

Ned's hand unclenched and he tilted his head.

"What," he said softly.

Her eyes were miserable when they met his. "Nicole."

Ned sputtered for a moment. "The maid of _honor_? At our _wedding?_ "

Laura nodded and walked over to the armchair, and sat down slowly.

They had met in college, she told Ned. At the sorority. And she had always thought Nicole was gorgeous, sexy, dangerous. She was the kind of girl who would take any dare, who would turn any man's head, who could walk out in a tank top and pajama pants and stop traffic.

The first time had been after a championship game, an enormous party, the first time she had ever had tequila. When the asshole jocks had dared the two of them to make out, Nicole had just raised an eyebrow, and then Laura, delicate naive little Laura, had felt Nicole's mouth on hers. Laura had gone upstairs later after an ill-timed elbow had dumped a drink all over her shirt, and then Nicole had been there, and in the morning it was like it didn't really count. They had been drunk and she was _straight_ and they were just fooling around, and Nicole didn't make any knowing comment, didn't slide a familiar arm around Laura's shoulders while they were all blearily dead-eyed and hungover at breakfast.

It happened twice more. The second time Laura was drunk again but Nicole wasn't as drunk, and Laura had known that. The third time, neither of them had been drunk at all.

And what she felt for Nicole wasn't love anyway, she told herself. Sure, she loved Nicole like a sister, and what they had done had felt _amazing_ , but her parents had told her all her life that she was supposed to get married to a nice stable man, have a few kids, a white picket fence, a minivan, jewelry on anniversaries and everything perfect. Nicole had absolutely no place in that.

And she was _straight_. Absolutely straight.

Then she had met Ned. He had been charming and gorgeous and she had fallen for him, not that same prickly dizzying feeling that had washed over her when she and Nicole had been together, but she had loved him. Did love him. When he had proposed, she had seen it all again—that perfect life, the perfect husband, the children she had always wanted to have, all the way things were supposed to be. When she had accepted his proposal, when she had married him, she had meant it.

Ned just listened, feeling the anger drain out of him, slowly.

She had talked to Nicole a few times after the wedding, but then she had left Ned after she found the box, and Nicole had given her a place to crash, and there had been the wine, but she hadn't been that drunk when Nicole had kissed her again, when they had somehow ended up in the bedroom. The next morning Laura had blamed it on her confusion and the fight.

And Nicole had asked her if she was happy, if her marriage was everything she had wanted it to be.

It was. Even though having sex with her husband had never been the earth-shattering experience she'd always thought it would be, even though the thought of Nicole's hands and mouth on her was what really made Laura wet. She loved Ned. It would work. She would make it work.

But it wasn't.

"I think," Laura said softly, "if I had met you first, if I hadn't met Nikki, that I wouldn't _know_. Because I do love you, so much. I just... I... she told me that she wants to be with me. _God_ ," she said, and buried her face in her hands.

"So that... that was why... you liked it when I went down on you," he said slowly.

Laura tipped her face back up, eyes blazing. "Is that all you can say?"

"No," he said immediately, but he sounded almost dreamy, almost calm. "So you never loved me."

He felt a small thrill of pleasure at the hurt expression that crossed her face, but it was swallowed by guilt.

"You don't understand," she said. "You... Nancy. You loved her. For a long time. And right now if she walked into this room—"

"But she did," he protested. "She did walk in here. And I didn't leave you for her."

"Why not?" Laura tilted her head.

Ned sighed. "Because she... she wasn't going to be here."

His wife nodded. "And if she were?"

Ned looked away and didn't answer.

Laura sighed. "You love her."

Ned shook his head. "I... we have a lot of history."

"But you would never go back to her."

"Baby, _you're_ the one I'm with. I'm in love with you."

"And I love you." She sounded desperately, incredibly sincere. "I love you so much. Just because I love Nikki doesn't mean I don't love you. Just because you love her doesn't mean you don't love me."

Ned sighed. "So, you're a lesbian now? Bi?"

Laura shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't really care. I fell in love with you and with her. And that's all." She flipped her hands over, showing him her palms.

"You keep saying you love me, but I keep _hearing_ that it's just not enough..."

Laura wiped another tear off her cheek. "Are you happy, Ned?" she said softly. "Or are you just doing this because this is what we were always supposed to do? If she walked in right now, told you that she was a fool and she wanted you back, are you saying you wouldn't leave?"

Ned's jaw trembled and he didn't answer. "Don't try to make me look like the bad guy in this."

"You aren't. Really. And if I'd met you back in college, oh, honey..."

He nodded. He did understand.

But he couldn't imagine feeling the same way about Laura that he felt about Nancy, that he always had felt about Nancy. Even if he had met Laura first... she had always just felt _safe_ , bright and beautiful and ordinary, but she wasn't Nancy, and she never would be.

And that was who she saw, when she looked at him. Someone smart and handsome and ordinary. The kind of person she was supposed to be with. The kind of guy she had always been told was a catch.

It would have broken his heart, if he hadn't felt the same way with Nancy, if he hadn't always been sure that someone smarter and quicker and _better_ would catch her eye and then he would be gone.

Ned sat down on the couch. "You can't... I know. I get it."

Laura sat down, slowly, beside him, and sniffled.

"So... you get together with Nikki and I..."

"She's still gone, isn't she."

Ned looked down at his hands. "I was pretty clear when I told her that I was gonna marry you," he said. "I don't know where she is or what's been going on with her. I didn't lie about that."

Laura nodded. "I hate her," she said, with a little smile.

Ned glanced up in her in surprise. "Nancy?"

Laura nodded. "You've never seen the look in your eyes when you talk about her," she said, and brushed her hair back behind her ears, a few strands dark and wet from her tears. "I mean, if I didn't know you were in love with her, that just gave you away. And I wish you felt that way about me."

"But you just said..."

She gave him that little smile again. "I do love you," she said again. "I love the way you look at me, too. I love the idea of being with you. But I know that it... I mean, who knows? Maybe a year from now I won't be with Nikki anymore. I don't know if it will even work between the two of us. But... now that I know she feels that way about me, I can't _not_ try."

Ned nodded. "And then you'd just come back to me?"

"Is that what you'd want?"

Ned shook his head. "I don't want to be your second choice," he said. "I don't want to be anyone's second choice. And I just—" He took a breath that stuck in his chest, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "What could I have done differently?"

She shook her head. "Nothing, baby. You have to understand that. It was nothing _you_ did."

The corner of his mouth quirked up in a bitter smile. "You just never... going to bed with you was never like going to bed with her."

Laura made a face at him. "Didn't really want to know that."

"I mean... I feel like I should have known, you know? The way you didn't like... that."

She shrugged. "It's like... ugh. It _hurts._ And... I don't know, with Nikki..."

Ned held a hand up. "Don't really want to know. I mean, I _do_ , a little, because it sounds super hot and everything—"

Laura punched him in the shoulder. "Yeah, I am _so shocked_ to hear you say that."

He smiled. "So I guess it's... over. Isn't it."

She took a long breath. "It doesn't have to be. I mean, we could do a separation—"

"But you'd be with her." When Laura nodded, Ned shook his head. "No. I'm sorry. It's just... if this feels like it isn't what you want, then no. I don't want to just wait around..."

Laura looked down at her hand, then put it on his knee. "She's going to come back to you, isn't she."

Ned shrugged. "She said she would. That she was. But... it was always just a little while longer. Just a few more months. Another year."

"And then I would have been your second choice," Laura said softly. "And I didn't want that either."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains explicit torture. If you're unable to read that kind of material, skip this chapter; the events are recapped in much less detail later.

Nancy couldn't remember it all, later. She was glad.

At first, at night, or what she thought was probably night, Cam would chain her by a heavy metal collar, with enough give for her to sit on the ground, not quite enough to let her lie down without strangling herself. Her shoulders, shoulder blades, back, all of her ached, and she could barely move once she sat down. Her arms were crusted with dried blood.

Her thighs were rough with dried blood, too, and once she had the strength to she would take the cloth to the small flimsy cup of water and gingerly clean herself off.

After she had been hanging there for twelve hours, after Cam and Eri came back and she had responded to all Eri's questions with denials, questions, begging, pleading, they had left her. She didn't know how much longer it was, when Cam came in, dismissed the guards, and walked up to her, switchblade still in his hand.

Then he had closed it and reached for the buckle of his pants.

Cam raped her for the first time that night.

She struggled against him, fought against him, even though the pressure on her arms was unbearable, even though she was sobbing. When she connected with his solar plexus he staggered back, then pulled out the blade again. He grabbed her arm roughly, fingers digging into her flesh, and put the blade to her throat.

"You keep fighting me and I'll make you wish you'd never been born."

"Eri won't—"

"Eri just doesn't want you dead. He didn't say you still had to have skin. Or eyes." For a moment the blade tip flashed in front of her wavering gaze and she felt a small moan escape her throat. "So you are gonna be still, aren't you. So still."

It hurt, but he meant it to. She wasn't wet and he didn't prepare her at all, just brutally pushed inside her. She bit her lip until her she tasted the copper of her own blood, her face wet with tears, upper lip slick from her running nose. When she let out a whimper of pain he slapped her hard across the face, and that just made her sob harder.

When he was done her inner flesh was sore, raw, and her thighs were hot and slick. Slick with blood, with _him_.

"You want me to keep visiting you?" he said, as he wiped himself off, wiped her blood off, before he pulled his pants back up. "Because girl I have had my eye on you for a long time. I don't mind coming back here."

Nancy shook her head, sniffling.

Cam came close to her. "Then you tell him what he wants to know," he said harshly. "But you don't? You will see me again."

He chained her by the throat, so tight she gagged at first, and then a fresh pair of guards replaced the ones Eri had dismissed. She barely noticed. With her fingers, her nails, she pulled at the collar, desperation thick and awful in her chest. It wouldn't loosen. Every time she swallowed she felt like she was drowning.

She let her trembling arms fall to her sides, her legs drawn up, and whenever she took a deep breath she just felt more hysterical. At some point she started screaming.

_All you have to do is say it. Tell them to go get Eri. Tell them you want to talk to him. And this will be over._

It would be over. She tried to imagine how Cam would do it. Maybe he would angle the blade up between her ribs. Maybe Eri would do it himself, with his bare hands.

Eri came to her, the next day, and a half dozen times she felt it rise in her throat, warm on her lips. The truth. Just something as simple as her name.

_He will kill you._

That was the only thing that kept her quiet.

But there was going to be a day when that thought would be a relief.

"It was all just a game to you, wasn't it," Eri said, head tilted, eyes glinting dangerously. His voice was soft. "Just tell me. Just tell me and this will end."

But it was Nancy who turned slowly before him, without the lie of Sloane between them. "It wasn't a game," she said desperately. "Remember when we met?"

He was quiet, but she saw his hand close into a fist.

"Why do you think it was a lie, baby?"

_You fucker. You motherfucker. I would set you on fire if I could. I would take a sledgehammer and break every bone in your body and I would burn the pieces._

He glanced up at her. "All you have to do is tell me. Just your name. Let's just start with your name."

"My name is Sloane," she sobbed out. "I'm your wife. You _love_ me."

He slapped her and she choked on her panic. "You're a whore," he hissed. "Aren't you. And all this was to you was a job. You're not my wife. You never were."

Then he took a long, deep breath and forced himself to calm down. "Just tell me the truth," he said.

"I _have_ ," she screamed.

He shook his head. "Do you know what Cam's going to do to you, if you keep this up?"

After he left, even when the guards were back in place, she was working against the cuffs. Her wrists were still tender, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.

She didn't remember how many times Cam raped her. The second time, the third, the fourth, she drifted off, beyond the basement, up above the house, into the sunlight, the starlight. Sloane was the fool who had been caught. It was happening to her. She kept waiting for Eri to return, and when she realized it had been days, the slim chance was already gone.

"I don't want to be doing this," Eri murmured, reaching up and touching her cheek. She was dirty, sweaty, her hair greasy, and given a second she would beg him for a bath, just a washcloth and some soapy water, anything. Part of her just wished that if she were dirty enough Cam would stop raping her.

But he didn't care how clean she was. It wasn't about attraction, it was about dominance and humiliation.

And Eri's sudden tenderness was terrifying.

It was safe, to be Sloane now. She had been Sloane so long that she could almost convince herself that she wasn't lying to him at all, that Nancy was just some fantasy she'd had a lifetime ago.

"Do you think I want to see you this way?"

She shook her head. Her throat was still sore from being chained the night before—if it had been night. She had no conception of days or time anymore. It felt like she had been down in the basement for years.

"Just tell me," he whispered, and reached between her legs.

She hadn't been able to cry in days, but she felt that familiar sting behind her eyes. Not this.

"Not like this," she said, begging with her eyes. "Eri, not like this, please, please. I beg you."

His mouth turned up in a little smile before he quashed it. "You don't want me."

"Not like this," she said, her voice breaking.

And the thing, the curious thing, was that from the second she was locked down here, Sloane had been a layer of protection she could no longer depend on, because Sloane depended on Eri and Cam and everyone else. Now they knew Sloane was a lie.

But she tried it anyway. She closed her eyes and when she opened them he was her _husband_ and this wasn't— this was just something—

He touched her clit.

It took every bit of her will to fight the urge to struggle against him, and she had been so good at it, she had been so good at pushing down her revulsion and fear.

Dimly, she realized, it had always been like this. Every single time. She had forgotten that. A violation. Terrible. And she had hated herself.

It took longer for him to make her wet, and slowly she felt that distance creep in again. Because _Nancy_ had been attracted to him. She didn't just have the excuse of Sloane anymore. She had thought he was handsome. But that hadn't made it okay, hadn't made it right.

Then he brutally shoved his fingers up inside her, and her eyes widened as she focused on him. "Don't you leave me," he snarled. "You don't leave. You aren't allowed to leave."

There came a moment, during it

( _the rape, it had always been rape, every single damn time_ )

when she felt him slap her, but she didn't care.

She could see Ned's apartment. It was the same apartment she had broken into, the one he lived in with his wife now. Nancy was barefoot and wearing her blue dress. Ned walked over to her.

The tears that had finally been stinging at the back of her eyes broke.

"I'll never see you again."

Ned touched her cheek

( _Eri was shouting, she felt the impact of a hand, and her thighs were slick with something that was probably blood now, oh God, oh God_ )

and smiled. "Yes you will. You know what you have to do."

_Just tell him and it's over._

Ned shook his head. "You tell him and you're dead," he said softly.

"But I can't do this," she said.

"There's only one rule."

The rule was to stay alive. She had to stay alive. And if telling Eri meant he would kill her, then she couldn't tell him.

( _Eri's nails on her skin, rough, deep_ )

Ned brushed her hair back.

"I just want to see you again," she said.

"You will."

"But you're with her."

"But I'll always care about you."

Eri grasped her throat roughly, and she screamed, the warmth of Ned's touch on her skin fading.

It was Eri's knowledge that she wasn't actually experiencing it, that enraged him. Eri's temper was short and it just grew shorter, and by the time he left the room her ribs were bruised, her thighs smarting, her throat raw from screaming, and even though Cam had raped her so many times that she had felt almost numb to it, it felt like the first time again.

She was dehydrated, weak. Her arms trembled. The sockets were warm with a dull tender throb. She wasn't sure she would ever be able to fully use them again.

If she got out of here.

Sooner or later, she knew, he was going to lose his temper and end this, and it would be a relief. Sooner or later he was going to try sodium pentathol or some other drug on her and it would be out of her hands. At least then the pain would stop.

Her inner flesh was stinging raw, and when she pressed her thighs together she whimpered in pain.

_When you get out of here._

That was it. That was the only slim hope. She would never make it, but at least she could try. At least she wouldn't be hanging here like a piece of meat when it was finally over.

Nancy spat out a mouthful of blood and started working on the cuffs again.

There was exactly one way she was going to get out of this.

Her arms were slick with fresh blood, raw from her maneuvering, when the guards shuffled their feet, one reaching for the lock. Then Cam walked in, just behind Eri, carrying a sledgehammer.

"This has been nice," Eri said. "It's nice to know the truth. Isn't it. You're American. And it's just going to be a matter of time. Just a day or two.

"But you can save us some time."

Cam hoisted the sledgehammer.

Nancy shook her head. "Eri, please."

"Please," he repeated softly, mockingly, but she thought she was just beginning to hear desperation in his voice. The kind of cold desperation that meant pain. " _Please._ Yes, please. Please tell me everything. You will tell me everything."

When they left an hour later, she was pretty sure every square inch of her was bruised. Her jaw ached when she moved it, and her mouth was full of blood. One of her eyes was swollen shut. They hadn't raped her, but she knew it was just a matter of time. Maybe she would be dead, by then.

She knew her leg was broken.

And Ned wasn't coming for her. No one was coming for her. And it was impossible, it was going to be so so hard to do this.

She gritted her teeth and through the pain she managed to work on the one weak spot she had been able to find in the cuffs, after working against them for so long. Her wrists were slick and that eventually made it easier.

She was going to scream when she put weight on her foot.

She stopped when she felt it give, all her weight on her good toes, and panted, glancing up at one of the guards. "Go get Eri," she said softly.

"What?"

"Go get him," she said, even more softly. "I need to talk to him."

Her bad luck held out, and one guard went to get him. Although he was reaching for a cell phone. So he was probably just going to the hallway.

The other cuff came free with a metallic click that she disguised with a cough. She had to hold on with the tips of her fingers to keep from putting her foot on the floor, and her arms shook with the strain.

Pain radiated through her jaw as she moved it into place.

Two of her molars hadn't come in when she was growing up. The agency had taken a hollow tooth and put a transmitter in it, implanting it before she left. It was undetectable, an ultra-low frequency that wouldn't be picked up.

She brought her teeth together hard, twice.

It took two seconds for the signal to be received, the charges to go off on the primary and secondary systems, and the power to go out.

This had always been part of the endgame. Harrison or someone like him had installed the system, for her to use if she was in trouble and needed a diversion and no one was around to help. She didn't know how many check-ins she had missed, but they wouldn't come into Eri's house for her. She was the most important key in the operation, but even she was expendable after the subdermal. The subdermal she had sworn to them would never work.

The entire room was pitch black, now.

The guards shouted to each other and Nancy swallowed a cry of pain as she put the barest amount of pressure on her broken leg. It was going to be a thousand times worse.

She reached behind her and found a blade.

They came for her, in the dark. Her arms screamed with pain but the adrenaline could have let her lift a car, and she left them in pools of their own blood, dead or almost dead. She pulled a gun out of a holster and switched hands, heading out into the corridor. She almost slipped on the blood and all her weight shifted to her bad leg and she did scream this time.

There was no time. No time at all.

Her strength was flagging when she reached the stairs, and she tucked the knife under her arm, the gun dangling from her numb fingers as she clutched the railing. Eri would be moving so much faster. She gritted her teeth and redoubled her speed, unimaginable agony shooting up her leg every time she had to put any weight on it at all.

Her first stop was in the room that had been hers and Eri's. Her clothes, everything that had been hers, was gone, but she pulled out a black t-shirt and a pair of drawstring shorts and pulled them on, sweating as she had to urge the shorts up over her broken leg. His sandals were too big for her but they were enough.

"Come on, come on," she muttered to herself, wiping her bloody, bruised face with an undershirt that she dropped to the floor.

The no-name cell was still hidden where she had left it. She just needed two minutes of charge.

Footsteps charged up the hallway. She heard distant shouting.

Her heart was going to beat out of her chest.

The footsteps passed.

She swallowed and made her choice.

She knew she was dead anyway.

Twice, on the way, she heard Eri shouting. She heard phones go off, to be silenced with terse answering barks. Without the air conditioning the air felt stuffy, dense around her, pulsing with colors, and when she saw sunlight through the curtains she almost cried in want, but she didn't have time, not yet. Maybe never.

She was dead anyway.

_Ned._

_You saved me,_ she thought.

_No. You saved yourself._

It was almost over.

Her fingers were trembling when she opened the door to Eri's study, and in instinct more than anything else she lashed out as soon as she walked in. A harsh breath, the sound of fabric against fabric. The knife was knocked out of her hand.

And that was fine. The flash of the gun's muzzle blinded her for a second, and then the man hit the floor.

Eri's laptop was heavier than the gun. Her shoulders screamed as she plucked out the cord and picked it up, hugged it to her chest.

Else this was for nothing.

It took her another five minutes to get out, through the garage door. She blinked into the sunlight, shielding her eyes.

Water hose.

She crept behind the bushes and drank until she felt sick, making sure to keep the laptop out of the stream. She washed the blood and sweat and dirt off her legs, revealed livid rings of fresh blood on her wrists, rinsed her stringy hair. She was shivering, gasping, when she was done, and the thought of getting back up on her broken leg made her feel sick.

Eri's house was backed by a field, high with weeds. She had to shoot two more men to get to it, and by then her gun was spent. She grabbed another from the last man, whose eyes were still rolling in his head, and ducked into the shade of the gardening shed.

The field.

When she was at the edge of it she turned the phone on, and it was already flashing a low battery signal. She dialed the number from memory.

"This is Sage. Request immediate extraction."

"Five minutes out."

She sat down, as though she had a choice; she couldn't feel a muscle that wasn't throbbing or screaming in protest, and even her own weight made her bruises feel tender.

"Sloane!"

It was Eri's voice, from inside. He was screaming. She kept her gaze and her gun trained on the house, and for the first time she let her lips curve up a little.

"Fuck you," she whispered.

Four more minutes. She just had to make it through four more minutes.


	10. Chapter 10

It took five weeks for Nancy to walk into the central office, but she wasn't even walking. The cast was a monstrous weight, and she couldn't bear the pressure of the crutches for long, but she sucked it up. When she was in the elevator she sagged against the wall, gasping her breath back.

All the people who recognized her greeted her warmly, but none asked her about the leg, just said they hoped she would heal up soon. She smiled and agreed, but as soon as she left a conversation she felt a strange sense of displacement steal over her. The office didn't feel like hers anymore; it had been a very long time, and she had never felt particularly at home here instead of in the field, but it wasn't like that anymore.

SAC Wyler was bent over some paperwork when she tapped the end of her crutch on his door. "Ready for your debriefing?" he asked with a smile.

She had already given an initial debriefing, while at the military hospital, attached to IVs, her leg newly plastered. The laptop had been taken away from her immediately, the lid marked with her singular bloody fingerprint. While the agency had sent in a counselor to talk to her, and assured her that she would have all the time she needed before she was sent out on assignment again, she knew that as far as they were concerned, the mission had been a success. She had given them the laptop. She had fulfilled her purpose. The rest was irrelevant.

No one would talk about the subdermal, not around her. She was sure that he had discovered it and his suspicion had immediately turned to her, after Cam's warnings.

Wyler sent out for lunch when they were halfway through, and Chinese once the office started to clear out at five. When he took a conference call, Nancy stood restlessly, wincing as her numb good leg prickled with renewed circulation. The hallway was bland. She wandered and found herself at the elevator, and punched the button for her floor.

Her desk wasn't hers anymore. She saw photos of a family she didn't recognize, a silk flower, a cardigan hanging over the back of the chair. She was a field agent; she didn't need a desk.

But she still had a cubbyhole for mail, and under the detritus of increasingly irrelevant internal memos she found the package she had mailed to herself on her way to the airport so many months before. She hadn't been able to drop it off anywhere else, and she hadn't been able to bring herself to get rid of it. She cut the package open and pulled the blue dress out, and immediately she could smell Ned's apartment, the musky tinge of sweat.

She saw him again, standing before her, his hand on her cheek.

She couldn't remember all of it—

(and that was one of the few things she had been honest with the counselor about; at first she hadn't quite been able to think faster than the truth, all her defenses in shreds after that interminable time with Eri)

but she remembered enough. She hated being naked, the feeling of vulnerability it created in her. Moving her arms too much was enough to cause pained tears to pool in her eyes. The hospital had been bad but being alone in a hotel room was worse. She had to sleep with the lights on.

She was so, so angry at Eri. So angry. So angry because every unexpected movement, every inexplicable noise, had her afraid that it was him, that he had found her. She had nightmares that she was safe and suddenly he was _there_ , that he grabbed her and dragged her by the hair and chained her up again, and when she woke, sobbing, her arms ached in memory, in sympathy.

She couldn't imagine going into the field again. She hadn't said anything, but she would never pass an extensive psych workup, not like this. And she couldn't imagine another legend knowing that she could end up at the mercy of another man like Eri or Cam. Even the thought of a simple mission like a dead drop was enough to make her mouth dry, to shut her down with paralyzing fear.

She slipped the dress back into the package and saw another envelope in the slot. The postmark was a month old.

The handwriting was Ned's.

Nancy managed the six feet to the nearest available chair and fell into it awkwardly, her crutches falling onto the desk, as she wedged her thumb underneath and tore back the corner. Plain unlined paper, stark black ink. For a second she wondered if it was just the news that he and Laura were expecting a baby, and wishing her a good life, and her heart sank. She took a deep breath before she started reading.

  
_Nan._   


  
_I don't know when you'll get this. I hope it's soon._   


  
_It didn't work out with Laura. I was offered a transfer, and I'm taking it. By the time you're reading this I'll probably be in California. I didn't want you to sneak into the old apartment and scare the hell out of whoever's in it now. I just couldn't stand being here, like this._   


  
_I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't wait for you. I should have._   


  
_Call me._   


  
_Ned_   


Nancy glanced at the clock, her heart pounding. Wyler would be wondering where she was.

  
_Call me._   


She slipped the envelope into the package with her dress and pulled the crutches back into place, heading for the elevator.

She managed to stop grinning like a fool by the time she reached Wyler's office again.

\--

Ned was in the passenger seat of Dennis's car, tapping his fingers against the door in time with the music, when his phone rang. Dennis turned the radio down as Ned fished his cell out of the holster on his belt.

He smiled when he saw the name on the caller ID.

"Hey."

"Hey," Laura said, a smile in her voice. "Busy?"

"On the way to a movie. What's up? Anything I need to take care of?"

"No, no. Nothing like that."

Ned heard a feminine giggle in the background. "Say hi to Nikki for me. And tell her she'd better be treating you well."

"She is," Laura assured him. "And she... well, I... I don't know how to ask you this. Are you going to be in Chicago anytime soon?"

"Wasn't planning on it," he admitted, bracing himself as Dennis negotiated a turn.

Laura was quiet for a minute. "Heard from... her, yet?"

"No. What is it that you wanted to ask me?"

"I... it can wait. It's okay. Just... give me a call later on. I'll be up."

Ned put it aside, while he and Dennis and two of their workmates watched the movie, a violent revengefest full of slow-motion strafing and gloriously executed kills. When he walked out an hour and a half later, his stomach aching a little from the popcorn and soda, he was thinking about it again.

Their divorce had been initiated in Illinois; Laura was handling it because she was still there, although their only real issue was the debt accrued after their marriage. Ned had agreed to split it with her; sometimes he regretted that, given how much more expensive life was in California, but their split had been as much his fault as hers.

At least, he supposed it was.

For the entire time they had been together, he had loved her. He had. He still did. After he had had time to process it, when she had packed a suitcase and left for good, he had thought back on everything she had said.

And it hurt, a lot, knowing that she hadn't quite loved him enough to stay, that she had never liked going to bed with him. It hurt that he had failed, that it was over, and even more than that, that he had insisted that Nancy stay... but his threat had been empty. He had hurt Nancy for nothing.

With every day that went by, he heard that voice again.

  
_If I get caught and killed there's a good chance they'll never even tell you._   


The letter he had sent hadn't been answered.

She had always said it would be just a little while longer, but it had been years.

There was a girl in his new office, named Bridget. Gorgeous auburn hair and smiling eyes. That same impulse that had drawn him to Laura was stirring again, reminding him that Nancy wasn't here, but _Bridget_ was.

He couldn't shake the feeling, though, that something was elementally wrong with him. Nancy had left him. Laura, now, had left him. Maybe he just wasn't enough for anyone. He had driven Laura to become a lesbian, for God's sake.

He shook his head, chastising himself. He did believe her. She had just happened to fall in love with both of them.

That didn't make it hurt any less.

He called her back after a few fingers of scotch over ice. "Okay, spill," he said.

Laura chuckled. He heard a door close behind her. "I miss you," she said, quietly.

"I miss you too." He wasn't foolish enough to believe that she was saying what a tiny part of him wished she was.

She sighed. "Look, Ned, there's no... there's no real way to do this. Nikki and I are talking about, thinking about, not anytime soon, but... we would like to have kids."

"Good for you," he said, sincerely.

"And... I didn't know if you might want to be a father. _The_ father."

Ned let his head drop back against the couch cushions.

"And I don't need an answer, like, right now, or anything, and of course if you agreed you would only be involved as much as you wanted to be—"

"You mean the choice between sex or a turkey baster?"

She made a soft irritated noise. "Ned—"

"No, I know, I know," he soothed. "Sorry. I just... this is really sudden."

"I know," she apologized. "But we've been talking about it and I just got so excited and... I know I should have waited. I mean, we aren't even divorced yet."

"And _that_ would definitely complicate things," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Her voice grew softer. "I just... even when I didn't understand anything I was going through, I loved the thought of having a baby with you. And if you just want to be the donor... or, even if you don't. And I totally understand if you don't want to be involved. It won't hurt my feelings."

Ned ran a hand through his hair. "Can I think about it?"

"Sure," she said. "And... I wouldn't be averse to trying it the old-fashioned way. If that... helps."

Ned chuckled incredulously. "I thought you said you didn't _like_ sex."

"I don't," she said. "Well, not like that, anyway. But, hell, it would save some money. And I think you liked it..."

"Wow," Ned said. "And Nikki's cool with this."

"She understands," Laura said. "She knows how this is."

It was tempting, Ned admitted to himself, when he was getting ready for bed a few hours later, still unresolved. Maybe he would never see Nancy again; and Laura did love him.

But it felt like a sympathy fuck, even if she did want to have a baby. A baby he wouldn't raise, living halfway across the country. And custody arrangements?

  
_It would've been just the same as if she'd gotten pregnant before she left._   


But... he could never have taken the job in Los Angeles, knowing that. He wondered whether she would have tried to stay with him, for the sake of the child. But that didn't matter now.

A child. Their child.

Ned poured himself another tumbler of scotch and stood over the sink, sipping it, looking out over the edge of the city, orange glow climbing halfway up the sky.

Nancy.

When Nancy came back

( _if she came back_ , that terrible voice broke in)

they would talk about children, the children he had always wanted to have with her. And Laura, oh, maybe eventually Nancy would forgive him Laura, but a child with Laura would be something entirely different.

He imagined Nancy again, as she had been the last time he had seen her. Beautiful blue eyes, red-gold hair just brushing her shoulders, in her blue dress. It had been hard to leave that apartment for the last time; his memory of her felt almost like a ghost that he would leave behind. But he had the box, the notes, the ring, the necklace, the yellow nightgown, and more of her was tied to those things than the bare floor of that small apartment.

Besides, he had brought the couch with him.

Ned left the tumbler with its few curves of melting ice on the coffee table and jabbed the power button on the television remote, sending the picture into a shrinking square, then headed to bed.

He would give Nancy some time. He owed her that, after so long. And then he would think about it again.

Laura was fucking _offering_ herself to him.

He tried to imagine it, seeing her again, knowing she was in love with someone else, and remembered how hard it had been, at first, knowing Nancy was with someone else too. But Laura was genuinely in love, and for Nancy it had been a mission the entire time.

Ned felt another sudden longing for more scotch, but gave up on it.

He couldn't make love to Laura, knowing she was in love with Nikki.

But Nancy... she had always told him that he was the only man she would ever love.

He turned onto his back, gazing sightless into the dark. Maybe it was still true. Maybe in the few months or year it would take for her to come back, maybe it wouldn't change. Maybe she would get his note and throw it away, disgusted that he would contact her after what had happened with Laura.

He flipped his pillow over and buried his face in it, sighing.

Maybe Bess or George knew where she was. Maybe Carson had an idea. Maybe he could find her.

He was just so tired of waiting for something to happen. He felt like he'd been waiting forever.

\--

Nancy had overexerted herself with her physical therapy, so she was waiting at the restaurant in a wheelchair. She ran a hand over her hair and winced at the ache in her shoulder.

Maybe one day she would be able to do it without pain. Maybe. Maybe not.

"Nan! Oh my God!"

Nancy hadn't mentioned her condition when she had talked to Bess and George; she blushed a little when she saw the cousins gazing down at her, eyes wide in concern.

"Are you okay?"

Bess leaned down to give her a hug, and Nancy wrapped her arms around her friend, her throat stinging with sudden tears. "I'm okay," she told her, and George was just behind her. "It's okay. Have a seat."

Bess looked amazing. Her long blonde hair was straight, and her eyebrows were perfectly shaped, her eyeliner clean and retro. George looked great too; her dark hair was chin-length and she actually had on some mascara.

"So how did this happen?" George demanded, as soon as she sat down.

Nancy released an inaudible sigh. She had given her father and Hannah an abbreviated, halfway fictional explanation. "The guy I was investigating got suspicious, and... well, it was bad for a while, but I managed to get out of there."

Bess nodded, her blue eyes locked on Nancy. "Your leg?"

"Broken."

"It must be bad, if they have you in a wheelchair," George said.

They placed their orders, and Nancy managed to turn the conversation to Bess and George. Bess was days from closing on a house with her boyfriend, whom, she was quick to reassure Nancy, she had been seeing for over a year. George was training for a marathon that was only a month away. Gradually Nancy began to relax. They were mostly just as she remembered them, Bess still bubbly and bright, George still sarcastic and sporty.

Bess swirled her straw around in her drink and said, "So, have you run into Ned yet?"

Nancy glanced between Bess and George. Neither seemed about to burst with the news. "I hadn't, but I didn't really expect to," she said, slowly. "Isn't he in California?"

"What?" Bess's mouth dropped open. George was shaking her head.

"No, Nan. He's here."

Nancy frowned. "He sent me a letter saying he had taken a transfer and he would be in California."

Bess shared a glance with her cousin. "I hadn't heard anything about that... but maybe I wouldn't. I haven't seen Ned in months."

"And he said things didn't work out with Laura."

Bess's grin was quick, delighted. "Really."

Nancy nodded. "So it sounds like... he's been kind of out of the loop?"

George nodded. "I mean, I haven't seen him at all..."

"And when I saw him, yeah, things didn't really seem to be going that well with Laura. Not really." Bess was still grinning.

"Like how?"

Bess shrugged. "Like she bought this enormously expensive dress and he flipped out some."

Nancy fiddled with the edge of her napkin. "He... I don't know, he didn't really seem like that. Before."

George shrugged. "Marriage makes people crazy."

"So," Nancy said, and took a deep breath, "so if I talk to him, and he's cool with it, would you guys maybe want to take a little trip to California?"

"You mean until you get sent out on another assignment or something?" George was being pragmatic, as usual.

Nancy shrugged. "I don't know. I want to see Ned. And as for assignments, well, it's going to be a long time before I take another one."

Bess's gaze at her was sharp. "Something bad happened," she said.

George scoffed. "She broke her _leg._ Of course something bad happened."

Nancy chuckled to herself. "It's just... I don't want to go out there alone, because I can barely get around by myself, and, seeing Ned is going to be so..."

"Awkward. For like half a second," Bess said.

"And then you two will be making out," George added, ripping a breadstick in half. "I'm game. As long as we get back before the marathon."

"I'm in," Bess said, and smiled. "As long as I can get some outlet shopping in."

George rolled her eyes. "Well, at least one of us might be some help to you," she told Nancy.


	11. Chapter 11

Ned actually had on a _suit_ , for God's sake. It was what he had worn to work, although he'd changed his shirt and put on a jacket. For the space of a second he considered putting the ring in his pocket, but that seemed ridiculous, especially since Bess and George would be with her.

He spotted George first, waiting at the baggage carousel. Bess was lugging an impossibly large suitcase off the conveyor belt.

But Nancy was facing him, her gaze was on him, and he stopped five steps into the terminal, ignoring the grumbles of the crowd reluctantly flowing around him.

Berlin.

This was nothing like Berlin.

She was in a fucking _wheelchair._

Ned strode briskly toward her, as she turned the chair toward him. Her hair was longer. Her face was thinner. And when she gazed at him, it wasn't with hatred or anger, not the way he had feared.

"Hey," she said, when he was close to her.

"Hey," he said, bending down, sliding his arms around her. She put her arms around his neck and he closed his eyes.

"That's got to be record time," he heard Bess say, and pulled back to see her smiling at him. "Hey Ned."

"Hey," he said, waving at her and George. "Got all the luggage yet?"

"We _would_ ," George replied, "if _someone_ knew how to pack for less than an army."

Bess rolled her eyes. "It'll just be a minute."

They headed back over to the carousel. Nancy's hand found his, and he gazed down at her.

"I'm sorry," he said, for what had to be the hundredth time. "I'm so sorry."

She smiled a little and shook her head. "It's okay," she said.

"It's not," he said, kneeling next to the chair so he could look directly into her eyes. "It isn't okay. I wanted you with me, and if I'd just been a little more patient—"

She touched his cheek. "Shh," she told him, and he found his gaze lingering on her mouth.

Fitting all the luggage _and_ Nancy's wheelchair and crutches into Ned's car was a challenge, and Bess ended up having to carry one of her duffel bags on her lap, but they eventually managed it. At the hotel Bess and George left Nancy in the car with the air conditioning going and the radio on full-blast, and Ned helped them carry their bags up to their room.

"So how is she doing?" Ned asked, once an older couple had left the elevator and the three of them were alone.

Bess and George exchanged a glance. "She's— God, I don't know," Bess replied, flipping a wing of blonde hair over her shoulder. "It's been so long since I've been around her. She's _different._ "

George nodded. "And I don't know all of what happened to her when she broke her leg, but she still isn't over it."

"How long ago was it?"

"Six weeks, I think," Bess replied.

Nancy had sprung for a suite; their rooms had a great view of the city, and were sumptuously appointed. Ned put Nancy's suitcase on her bed and headed back out to the common area.

"How long are you guys staying?"

Bess had already disappeared into the bathroom to freshen her makeup. George glanced up from the couch; she was flipping through the channels, trying to find ESPN before her cousin vetoed in favor of something ridiculous like a soap network. "A little over a week," she replied. "I think, anyway. And after tonight if you want me and Bess to get lost, do some sightseeing, maybe some," George heaved a huge sigh, " _shopping_ , we'll understand."

Ned smiled. "It's up to Nan," he said. "I can take Monday off but for the rest of the time I'll be at work, and I'm sure she wants to shop..."

"Oh, just rub it in," George retorted, playfully.

Ned slid back into the driver's seat and felt Nancy's hand cautiously brush his. He squeezed it and could almost feel her relax beside him. "So the rooms are great," he reported. "I'm jealous. I was thinking we could hit Manolo Grill for dinner."

"Am I dressed okay?"

Ned looked at her rose-sprigged cotton sundress, her single sandal, the soft blush of her lips. "You look great," he reassured her, and smiled when she ducked her head a little. The sundress was loose on her. Ned knew he could talk Bess into a slice of cheesecake; it wouldn't hurt Nancy at all, either.

As soon as they had placed their meal orders, Ned glanced around the table at the three girls. "Okay, so, since I'm sure as soon as I tell Nan about this, she'll tell you guys, I thought it'd be better to just get this out of the way."

Bess propped her chin on her hand, sparkling blue eyes locked on him, George was glancing over at Nancy, whose gaze was a little concerned.

He told them the truth about Laura and how things had ended between them, and couldn't deny he was a little gratified by Bess's dropped jaw, the sudden sharp quality in Nancy's gaze. He said they were still on good terms, but she was still back in Illinois, and he didn't miss the way Nancy's shoulders relaxed.

"So... wow." Bess was the first one to speak once he was finished. She dropped the lemon wedge into her water and shook her head. "And you had no idea?"

"Not... not really," Ned said. "I was pretty much blindsided."

Nancy kept her gaze turned away until the conversation moved to safer topics. Bess described her new house ("it has a _pantry!_ And a garage! And it is _so gorgeous_ but I think we'll put in granite countertops, eventually") and George talked about the triathlon she would start training for soon. Ned didn't miss how quiet Nancy was.

"So, got any big plans for the summer?" Ned asked Nancy, as she unrolled her silverware.

Nancy shook her head. "No car," she said. Then she let out a sarcastic chuckle. "I don't even actually have a license anymore, not that I can drive like this."

Ned nodded. "The cast will come off soon, though."

"Another six weeks, probably," she sighed. "I should be happy I can walk at all."

Ned, Bess, and George glanced up at her, but she had her lips pressed together hard, and Ned found a sudden lump in his throat.

"So it's like a little vacation."

She glanced up at him, and after a beat she gave him a small smile. "Yeah. Like a little vacation."

"I'm glad you're here."

Bess and George smiled in answer, but Nancy ducked her head. "So am I," she said softly.

\--

Ned gave the three of them the grand tour of his apartment. It wasn't all that different from the one he had left behind in Chicago. His bed was made, which made Nancy smile. He had never liked making his bed, so it was for their benefit.

The couch was the same. She looked at it and remembered how desperate she had felt, how awful that night had been, and she had told herself that she wasn't mad at him anymore, but hearing about Laura, even if it was why they were apart... God.

She had never met the woman. But she wouldn't mind punching her in the mouth a few times, even if she and Ned weren't together anymore.

Bess and George accepted the inevitable offer of coffee; Nancy accepted a glass of water and took another pain pill. The long day of traveling, the jet lag, her exhaustion, were weighing on her. Soon after they had finished their coffee, Bess and George exchanged a glance and stood. Ned offered to drive them back; Bess said they would catch a cab.

Then George glanced over at her, and Nancy shook her head, slightly. "I'll be there in a little while," she said, and looked at Ned. "If you don't mind."

"It's fine," he said, but his voice jumped a little.

Then Bess and George were gone and they were alone, the television reduced to a quiet murmur. Ned deadbolted the door behind them, and when he walked back into the living room she was shifting in the wheelchair.

"I—would you mind? I would love to sit on the couch."

"Sure," Ned said, and lifted her effortlessly out of the chair. He helped her arrange her cast, brought her a pillow from the bedroom to help her get comfortable, and then sat down next to her.

"Did you want anything else? Any more water?"

Nancy shook her head, then took a deep breath and forced herself to turn and fully face him. "I'm fine."

Ned nodded and pushed the remote an inch on the coffee table.

"Ned—"

He pushed himself up. "Hang on," he said, and she was a little irritated, but mostly amused when he vanished for a moment and came back with a box. He looked as nervous as she felt. Then he reached into the box and pulled out the necklace. The necklace he had bought for her in Berlin.

Nancy took a breath and felt tears prick behind her eyes.

He offered it to her and let out a little chuckle. "Laura found this box and we had a huge fight over it. She didn't understand why I still had it."

Nancy swiped at her eyes, absurdly grateful that he wasn't really looking at her, and took the necklace out of his hand. "Well, I don't remember you taking any scandalous photos of me, so that must not be why..." She hooked a finger under the clasp and let the chain dangle from her hand, and the pendant swung back and forth. "Would you put it on me?"

His fingertips were warm against the back of her neck as he swept her hair to the side and fastened the chain. She touched the pendant with the tips of her fingers. Another memory, the memory of the blue teardrop stone, banished.

She glanced up at him, her lashes wet. "So what else is in there?"

"Oh..." Ned shrugged, and pulled out the yellow nightgown, and she closed her eyes hard, another set of tears slipping down her cheeks. A few pieces of paper followed, and she recognized her own faded handwriting. Then he chased something to the corner of the box with his fingers and drew it out, and placed it gently on the coffee table.

The ring. The ring he had offered to her a lifetime ago.

"You didn't give it to her?"

Ned shook his head. "I would never have given it to her."

Her fingers were wet, and they slid over the gown as she picked it up. She was afraid to touch the ring; she already felt fragile enough.

"You kept it. Even after you were married to her?"

Ned nodded. "I..." He sighed. "I tried to do what you told me to do. I tried to just move on, when I didn't hear from you so long, after Berlin— and God, when we were in the airport, I wanted _so much_ to beg you to just run away with me—"

A pair of mascara-stained tears fell on the yellow silk, and Nancy crushed it in her fingers. "Ned," she whispered, her voice thick.

"—but I met her, and I tried so hard not to like her, but she..."

Nancy cleared her throat. "You don't have to tell me."

Ned turned to her, and his eyes were miserable. "I was wrong," he said. "I was just— I was lonely, and— she was my second choice. And I was hers. We just didn't know that."

Nancy looked down. "I felt the same way you did, in Berlin. My God, if I had just run back to you, none of this would have happened."

"You did?"

Nancy nodded, glancing back up at him. "I just wanted to hear you say my name again," she whispered. "It was so long and for a while it was hard to remember that this was ever real, and then, it was you, you were what brought me back..."

"Nancy," Ned whispered, and a shiver went down her spine at the sound of her name on his lips, low and tender and loving.

She reached for his hand. "I kept telling myself that it was over, but I didn't know you still had the ring."

"I couldn't get rid of it," he said softly. "Not even after she found it. I just couldn't."

On the television screen, a woman was making sandwiches for her family in a bright white kitchen. Since Nancy had been in the hospital she had been hungry for _news_ , reality, anything other than celebrity gossip and empty lies. She felt like she had been trapped in a coma, in a series of increasingly terrible nightmares, for years.

"What do you mean, I brought you back," he said softly.

Her heart sped up so quickly she almost felt dizzy. "I—not yet," she whispered.

"Okay."

Someone else had written the letters that he had kept, the letters she could see on the table. Someone _whole._

"So you're going to be taking another assignment, once you're all fixed up," he said, and there was no question in his voice, and his palm was warm and a little damp in hers.

Nancy shook her head more violently than she meant to, and he turned to her. "I'm not. I'm not. I'm done."

Ned's eyes widened. "For good?"

"Yeah," she said. "I can't—I'm not. That's over."

His hand slipped out of hers and then his arms were around her and she let out a long shivering sigh as she returned the embrace. Her lips grazed his neck.

"I..." His breath was warm on her skin, and she shivered. "I want to say great or congratulations or something but that just doesn't sound right."

Nancy laughed. "It's scary," she admitted. "It's like I have this enormous chunk gone out of my work history. I don't have anywhere to live. My car is gone; I let Dad and Hannah use it while I was gone and the engine finally gave out. I don't have a license. All my stuff is in storage. And I was in great shape, and then this happened," she said, and looked down, and _don't think about it, don't think about it._

She had spent six weeks _not thinking about it_ and hoping that the deeper she swallowed it the less she would be able to remember or feel, but it was like razor blades in her.

"So... it's a great way to start over."

Nancy let out a laugh that was almost hysterical. "Yeah," she agreed.

"What do you want to do?" Ned pulled back, but stayed close to her, and Nancy quickly swiped at her eyes again.

"I don't know," she said softly. "I can't— even sleep through the night yet. I think if I get a good night's sleep I'll probably be able to think of something."

He nodded.

She glanced at the ring, and his gaze followed hers.

But they didn't talk about it. She asked him about his work and he seemed almost relieved to be on solid ground again; he said that he loved California's mild weather so far, although he was already planning to go back to Illinois at Christmas to see his parents, and his new workplace was already better than where he had been working in Chicago. She watched him idly fix himself a scotch and water, and he offered her one, but she shook her head, accepting another glass of water instead. A rerun of a show they had watched together when they were in high school came on, and they watched it, anticipating punchlines, remembering the way the storyline never really seemed to come up again in future seasons.

When the show ended Ned glanced over at her, and she could smell the faintest hint of the scotch in the air.

"What do you want to do?"

It was a relief to just say it. She didn't have to hold back too much around Bess and George, and with her father and Hannah she just had to remember what would upset them, but this was Ned, and he wasn't her boyfriend, he was just her old friend _who had kept the ring_ —

"I'd like to stay here," she said. "Not forever or anything, just for tonight," she hastened to add.

The corner of Ned's mouth turned up. "And your suitcase is back at the hotel, so..."

"Can I borrow a shirt?"

They didn't look at the yellow nightgown on the table. She wanted to wash it, anyway, even though the sight of it, remembering their time together in Berlin, made her almost ache with regret and envy.

When he brought her an old Emerson t-shirt she reached for the hem of her dress, shifting her weight. Ned picked her up so she could pull the dress above her hips and she sucked in a swift breath at the pain when his grip was tight under her arms. She pulled the dress over her head, not even thinking about it; she and Ned had seen each other naked dozens of times, and from all her time being poked and prodded in the hospital, she had tried to stop being so modest, to stop associating the sensation of cool air against her skin with—

She shivered and yanked the shirt over her head.

"Is it too cold in here?"

She shook her head, folding the dress. "No. Sorry. Thank you."

Ned nodded uncertainly. "You can have the bed."

Nancy looked up at him.

This was how it had been then, too. At least this time she hadn't really even tried to imagine it, hadn't set herself up for this. At least this time he wasn't telling her that they couldn't be together, that she had doomed them so many years before.

"Thanks," she said softly.

\--

Ned had to help her into his bed. She slid her arms up around his neck as he carried her, angling to get her cast through his bedroom door. Then she made a face and they and her cast managed to fit into his small bathroom, as she rubbed toothpaste on her teeth with her fingertip and he brushed his own teeth.

The scotch was warm in his belly, and he was still surprised he hadn't yet managed to fuck this up. Then he placed her gently back on his bed and she reached under the shirt and pulled her bra off, tossing it at the couch where her dress was.

The shirt was white and her nipples were peaked a little against the fabric.

She looked up and saw him looking at her, and he managed to pull his gaze up to her eyes.

"I'm not tired yet," she said softly.

He knew exactly what that would have meant, before. He would have leaned down to her and pushed his knee between her thighs and slipped her shirt off, and then they would have tried to maneuver around her cast and laughed...

He had already idly tried to figure out the logistics.

Instead he sat down and smiled at her. "Let me just get ready for bed. I'll be right back."

He turned off the TV and the living room lights, made sure the front door was bolted, and found a spare pillow and blanket for the couch. When he walked back into his bedroom, pulling his shirt off, Nancy was on her cell phone, sprawled on his side of the bed.

"Yeah. I'll see you in the morning. Yeah, four-door. Okay. Just call me." She ended the call with a smile and put her cell on the bedside table, on top of his alarm clock.

"So, I just— I'm sleeping on the couch tonight."

He put the faintest question in his voice, and Nancy's blue eyes grew troubled. She tried to push herself up and he propped up the pillow behind her, watching her settle against it, not knowing what to do.

"Yeah," she said softly. Her hand tightened into a fist, and she tried a few times to speak, without luck, before she succeeded. "I— I feel like I can't talk to anyone about this, and... it just keeps getting worse..."

He gazed at her in sympathy. "Bess and George?"

Nancy shook her head impatiently. Her eyes were bright with tears. "God, I can't talk to them about this. And this is a new start, right? I can just walk away from all of it."

He nodded.

"But this is just going to rot inside me until I talk about it."

For the barest second he thought she meant that she was pregnant, but she glanced away, her mouth tight, and he dismissed the thought.

She sighed. "Could you— _God_ , I hate feeling so fucking helpless. I can't be in the dark anymore. Can you leave the bathroom light on and turn the light off in here and just... just sit in here with me."

The apartment was so still, when he sat down beside her, on the other side of the bed, the pillow propped up behind him, and nothing between them. He could feel her breathing, and she was all in silhouette, the fine strands of her hair making a soft halo in the light.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low, husky with tears. "You don't want to hear this."

Ned shook his head. "I don't," he admitted. "I don't. But I think you need to say it, so I'll listen."

\--

It was easier, in the dark, and once her eyes adjusted she could see the glint of his eyes, the rise and fall of his chest. She had to work to get comfortable with the cast; she would cry with relief the day the damned thing came off.

She started with the assignment, so long ago, and told him how much those few times they had been able to meet had meant to her. It all poured out of her, the details Wyler hadn't cared about: the terror and tedium of her life with Eri, how she had resented his touch, the fear that had colored every waking moment. How Sloane had started feeling like another personality, how she had had to guard every single word she spoke and every gesture she made to keep Eri from getting suspicious of her. How her life started feeling like a dream she had once had, especially after she had made her aborted trip to see Ned and convince him not to get married.

"I wish I'd listened to you," he said softly.

She was so glad he couldn't see her face, that she couldn't see his. "I didn't have any right to ask you that, after what I'd told you."

He shifted and the bedsprings creaked under him. "I just... if I'd known."

Nancy snickered. "If I'd known... this wouldn't have happened."

She told him about Eri's suggestion that they try to have children, and felt him tense next to her, but he didn't say anything. She told him about the subdermal, how vehemently she had opposed it, and he growled softly next to her. The awful moment when she had seen Harrison in the basement.

She had to wait for a long time before she could get the last part past the lump in her throat.

"Are you asleep," she whispered, hoping that he wouldn't answer.

"No," he said softly, and she could hear the husky gravel of exhaustion in his voice, the sound she had always loved.

"And then I woke up and he had me chained up in the basement," she said, and her voice was halting, shaking, and Ned sat up in the bed next to her. Then he put a box next to her and she discovered it was tissues, and swiped her face with one, gasping in deep breaths.

"It was the subdermal," Ned said. "Wasn't it. That's what tipped him off."

"Yeah," she said, chuckling at his insight. "Yeah, I think it was."

Ned made a disgusted noise. "Assholes," he growled.

"I don't know how long I was down there. I checked and... and the last day I remember, and then the day I made it out, it was two weeks."

"He had you chained up in the basement for two weeks." His voice was flat with rage.

Nancy nodded. "H-he wanted to know who I was, who I worked for, what I was supposed to be finding out. And my arms... my arms are so weak now because he had me chained up by my wrists, and all my weight was hanging there, and every now and then Cam would chain me by the neck on the floor but it wasn't enough to let me lie down, and..."

She had to take another series of long deep breaths, and a sob stuck in her throat, and then Ned reached for her in the dark, caught her hand and squeezed it in his, and she broke, letting out a series of long ugly gulping sobs that shook her frame, the bedsprings creaking under her.

"H-he—he told Cam—Cam raped me," she sobbed out, almost incoherent, and then Ned moved across the bed and pulled her into his arms, his palms stroking up and down her back. "Shh, shh," he whispered, into her hair, and she buried her face against his chest and gave herself over to it, the way she hadn't let herself since the second she had loosened the cuffs and freed herself.

And it hurt, it _hurt_ to say the words, but it was worse to leave them unspoken.

"I don't know how many t-times it w-was," she said, her voice still hitching, her face flushed and wet. "I can't remember all of it. It hurt _so much_ and then he would leave me and I would have blood all down my legs and— and—"

Ned's grip on her tightened reflexively as she lapsed into rough sobs again. "Shh," he whispered, and she could hear his anger behind it.

"And I kept hoping he would stop, but he _didn't_ , and then Eri came in and he said he didn't want to do it, he would stop hurting me if I would just tell him, and I knew he was going to kill me, and I _wanted_ it, I just wanted him to stop hurting me. I wanted— I wanted it to end."

And it felt like something broken in her, knowing it, admitting it, even in the dark, even only to him. None of the counselors, the doctors, the agents, not Bess or George or Hannah or her father knew it.

But Ned's hand just moved up and down her back, gently.

"And then E-Eri... he raped me and I had to beg him not to and he didn't care, and— and then I saw you, in your old apartment, and you told me that the most important thing was just to get out of there alive, just to get through it. And that's the rule, that's always the rule, that no matter what you have to do, to leave, even if you have to give up everything else, you have to get out."

He was stroking her hair now. And it was like a nightmare, like a bad dream she was telling him about, except that she relived it every night over again.

"So that's what you did," he said softly.

"I didn't tell him anything," she said. "Not my name, not anything. And then he came back with Cam and— and they beat me, and he took a sledgehammer and broke my leg."

Her leg throbbed at the memory, and she let her forehead rest against his chest, the pressure in her head starting a headache behind her eyes.

"And you escaped like that," he said in awe, and she shivered when his thumb brushed the side of her neck.

She nodded. "I got out and called for backup—"

"They didn't come in for you?" Ned was incredulous, angry.

"No one was going to come for me," she told him. "Nobody. And I knew that."

When she was finished with her story, he held her until the last of her sobs subsided, then went to the bathroom. She heard the tap running and he returned with a wet washcloth, and it felt blissfully cool on her face.

"Are you going to be—okay?"

She rubbed the washcloth over her face again, feeling like a child. "My leg will heal; I might walk with a limp but if I'm lucky I won't. My arms—I might have to have surgery later; I'm just supposed to take it easy and hope they improve, but I won't have the strength I used to have anymore. The bruises are pretty much all gone. And—they tested me and I'm not pregnant, I'm clean, thank God, but I can't—they said it would just take a while, and, it—it doesn't hurt anymore, but I feel air on my skin and I'm back there— I even think about, anything, anything, the leather on the couch, a bike-chain, anything— and I'm back there, and I c-can't—"

"I understand," he said softly, and his fingertips brushed her cheek. "I know. I'll be sleeping on the couch."

She slipped her arms around him and his chest was warm through the thin fabric of the shirt, and she was aware of how little she wore. "I know—God, I shouldn't—I think I might be able to sleep, if you were in here with me."

Ned groaned good-naturedly. "You're trying to torture me," he said mildly. Then he rushed to say, "Oh, God, I didn't mean—"

"Only a little," she interrupted him, patting his cheek. "It's okay. And only if you're comfortable with it..."

"Of course I'm comfortable with it," he retorted, and kissed her forehead. "Managing to sleep in bed with a gorgeous woman who has forbidden any contact? I am the _master._ "

Nancy chuckled. "Yeah, and I seem to remember that you weren't all that good at keeping your hands to yourself."

"I'm hurt," he said, and then he moved away from her, but their hands found each other in the dark. "But I'm up for the challenge."

\--

Ned waited until her breathing became regular, until a squeak of the bedspring didn't make her gasp in a startled breath, and released her hand. When she didn't wake he carefully slid out of bed, quietly poured himself another tumbler of scotch.

_Fuck._

His hands were shaking.

He hadn't realized just how little he had understood until he had heard her talk about it. He had thought her life with Eri was just the way she had always wanted it to be, that she had made the best of her marriage—

 _The way Laura had,_ he thought.

That it had been like before, those men she had flirted with on her cases.

The fucker had chained her up in the basement, and he hadn't even been the only one to rape her.

Ned had to put the tumbler of scotch down before it broke in his fist.

And no one had been there for her. He hadn't been there for her. If it had been a case, at least he would have known when she hadn't been in contact for too long; at least he would have been able to just fucking _do something_ , but she had been there, alone, scared in the dark.

Ned sucked in a swift breath, then closed his eyes and bowed his head, trying to make himself calm down.

At least she was leaving the agency. At least it was over. And she would heal, and eventually he could ask her out, he could suggest that she stay here, even though he would follow her anywhere now, even though he couldn't imagine letting her out of his sight the next day.

He went back to the couch, sweeping his glass up on the way, and sat down, reaching for the ring. The yellow gown, the notes. All that remained of them.

That, and the damaged woman asleep in his bed.

He heard her moving and closed his fist around the ring, and then heard the strange hollow sound of her cast thumping against the floor. When he rose she waved him off. Her face was flushed, the soft flesh around her eyes swollen from her tears, and when she brushed her hair back he saw the almost-bruised circles above her cheekbones. She hobbled into the kitchen and went through a few cabinets before finding a glass, and he heard the water run. She made her way slowly back to the couch, and sat down gingerly beside him.

"There's something I didn't tell you," she said, looking down at the water in her glass. "Right before I left Chicago, another agent called and told me that the network had been compromised, and my information was accessed. I don't... I don't know this, but... I heard how angry he was, when I was getting out, and I think it was him. I think he's going to come after me. Even if I'm not with the agency anymore. Like he said, it's only a matter of time before he finds out who I am, and I walked off with his laptop, and..." She shivered. "He doesn't forget a grudge."

Ned opened his palm and looked down at the ring, and when he glanced over at her, her gaze was on it too.

"Good," Ned whispered.


	12. Chapter 12

Four days later, he kissed her for the first time.

They had spent the weekend together, spent Monday together, the four of them; at night she had been in his bed, and the Monday morning when she woke she was curled up against him, his arm over her, her forehead against his chest. She was panicked, remembering the taste of blood in her mouth, and she sucked in a swift breath when she tried to straighten her leg. But the scent of him, the familiar sight of him so close to her, calmed her down.

On Tuesday he went back to work and Nancy spent the day at an outlet mall with Bess and George, and Bess had playfully directed Nancy to a lingerie boutique. She had shrugged it off at first, and then had an idea. The store carried a few pairs of panties that tied at the sides, and she bought those and a few front-closure bras. One or two happened to be black, but black was a good basic color.

And Bess and George didn't know that Ned wouldn't do anything more than see them. For a long time, anyway.

It was that night, after Ned took them out to dinner and she opted to go see a movie with him, and afterward he escorted her back to the suite, wincing on her crutches. When they reached her door she propped the crutches up beside it and slid her arms up around his neck, and he leaned in until their foreheads were touching.

"You know you can come back to my place with me," he said softly.

She closed her eyes. "You need your space," she said. "When we set this up the arrangement wasn't for me to shack up with you and this isn't fair, and—"

"And you can come back with me," he interrupted, mildly, smiling.

She sighed. "I... what if I move here," she said quietly. "I'll get my own place—I mean, it will have to be a really high security building, and I can find a job..."

"Don't tease me," he said.

She smiled. "I mean it. But I don't want to even think about it if you don't think it's a good idea."

"I think it's a great idea," he said, and then he tilted his head, slowly.

He gave her plenty of time to move away, to avoid the kiss, but she leaned into it, her heart triphammering in her chest. His mouth touched hers and her knees would have buckled, if not for the cast.

He was married. He was still married to someone else, and she couldn't imagine what she would do when he wanted to take this any further, and—

oh, _fuck_ , it didn't matter.

His tongue slid along the seam of her lips and she parted them obediently, her fingers sliding into his hair. He had his arms around her and he had her against the wall—

It was _Ned,_ the man she knew so well, the man she had known so well. There was no danger here.

Even so, when he broke away from her she was breathing hard, her lips swelled red from his kiss.

"Maybe you're right," he whispered. "I... God, Nan."

She closed her eyes. "I don't know how slow is slow enough," she said.

"We'll figure it out," he told her, brushing his lips over hers one last time before releasing her.

\--

Laura called Ned when he was on his way to see an apartment Nancy had found. Bess had been rhapsodizing over it in the background when Nancy had called, and it was starting to feel real, like she was really staying.

"Hey."

He had considered not answering. Instead, he smiled and said "Hey."

"How are things?"

"Pretty good. She's—visiting."

"Oh," Laura said, softly. "That's—that's great, Ned."

"Yeah."

Laura sighed. "I'm happy for you."

Ned chuckled. "Thanks. And... I've been thinking about what you asked—"

"Oh, you don't have to—"

He waited until she trailed off, his turn signal blinking as he waited for the light to change. "I... I can't sleep with you. And, I... I just don't know about... the other way. I need more time."

"That's okay."

"And if she doesn't want me to, I won't."

"I understand," Laura said. "And maybe it would just be easier... if we look into other options."

Ned smiled. "I... Thanks for asking me."

"Thanks for considering it. And, who knows, maybe when we're ready..."

It was strange, for her to say _we_ and mean _not us_.

"Maybe. But if you run into, oh, who's that actor you like so much..."

Laura chuckled. "Him or you or nothing."

Ned waited a beat. "Good luck, okay? With... everything."

"Same to you," she replied.

And it felt not entirely unlike the day he signed the divorce papers, the fond finality in her voice, the sensation that there wouldn't be many more of these phone calls.

"Good night, Laura."

"Good night, Ned."

\--

Nancy noticed him when she was back in Chicago, the moving van backed up to her storage unit, swiping at her damp forehead. George was helping her. Hannah was too, although she had spent a few hours the night before trying to feel her way through all Nancy's reasons, trying to find a way to convince her to stay closer to home.

Nancy felt sticky and miserable. She just wanted a bath, but she wasn't allowed to submerge the damn cast. It was something small to look forward to doing, but it was something.

The man she noticed, idly, was just walking out of the manager's office, stuffing something into his pocket. He wore a jacket even in the stifling heat, and the pleats on his pants were razor-sharp.

Nancy frowned.

Those were just off the rack clothes.

The man slid behind the wheel of a car and ostensibly fiddled with something. When she saw his face turn toward the units again, Nancy swiped her forehead and glanced away.

It wasn't him, not specifically him, that she saw four days later when she was moving in. But she felt at her back anyway, for the gun she had picked up in Chicago, to keep herself feeling the slightest bit safer.

She could feel it, the way the fine hairs stood on the back of her neck, the copper taste in her throat.

It took a long time for her to arrange the apartment, so long that she stood in the middle of the room, frustrated, blowing her hair out of her eyes. She had to have the television on all the time now, and she left it on the news; as she unpacked dishes and put away clothes she kept watching the constant crawl across the bottom of the screen, like she was waiting for something.

When Ned came in she was hot and tired and her nerves were on edge. Making the bed alone had been a monumental ordeal. Stacks of disorganized CDs and DVDs perched in precarious handfuls near the partially assembled television stand. She had rinsed a pair of place settings, but when Ned walked in he was carrying two pizzas and a bottle of wine, and she wouldn't bother dirtying them again.

When the doorman had called to let her know Ned was on the way up, she had peeked out the window. A late-model smoke grey car was parked across the street, and as she watched she saw a shadow move slightly inside.

Ned's first response after she told him about the car was a vow that he would go downstairs and take care of it.

"I don't know. I don't know for sure. I just have a feeling."

"So give him ten minutes. We'll see if he's still out there." Ned's jaw was set. "I wish you'd just move in at my place."

It was amazing, how quickly her anger rose in her. "For how long, Ned? Until you meet some other girl?"

His mouth dropped open, but his eyes narrowed just as quickly. "What the fuck, Nan?"

Her voice was shaking when she spoke again. "You said you would wait for me, but that didn't matter. How the hell am I supposed to trust you? You weren't there—you didn't—"

Ned's brows drew together. "What are we doing here— how many times do I have to say I'm sorry? I am. I am so sorry."

"But it doesn't matter," she said, and she wanted to break things, wanted to slam things. She wanted to hurt him. "It doesn't matter how sorry you are. It's what you did."

He closed the few steps between them and she tilted her head back to face him, her fists clenched. "And what about what you did?" he said, his face flushed. "What about that time you spent with him? All that time when you were married just like I was."

"For a _job_ ," she shot back, and she could hear her voice rising, but she didn't care. "It wasn't _true._ "

"Really?" He shook his head. "All those times you went to his bed when you had a choice. And I was supposed to just wait like a monk for you."

"If you cared about me," she replied. "You said you wanted to _marry me_ , remember? Before I left. What were you trying to say, then, that that's the only way you were going to be faithful to me? If I promised something I would have had to break immediately?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he said, and his face was in hers, his eyes blazing.

The rage was the only thing that kept her from cowering, the rage at what had happened, the rage that Eri had found her again, that nowhere on earth was ever going to be home again.

She lashed out—

And Ned grasped her wrists hard to stop her, pushing her off balance, onto the couch—

And it was the press of his fingers into her flesh, the hot black tangle of her desire and her fear, the thick press of panic in her throat—

And she screamed and thrashed under him, and her cast struck the table and one of the pizzas fell on the floor. "Nan," he growled, and—

It was like a thick black wave, what happened next. She drowned in it. The anger was hot in her, stronger than the sour taste of her fear, for a little while, and she was so damn _afraid_ all the time that it was better to feel this, to give herself over to the rage, than to fall back into it.

When she came back to herself the room was darker, and she dimly remembered a fist pounding on the door, Ned's fingers on her cheek. She glanced around and Ned came back into the room, walked to her.

"Couldn't find the washcloths," he muttered, and handed her a wet paper towel.

Her throat was raw. It hadn't been before. She swallowed hard against it and winced, accepting the towel.

"What," she said softly.

There were fresh red scratches on the heels of his hands. He looked around but not precisely at her.

"I think you need to see someone," he said quietly.

She pushed herself up. Her arms hurt.

Her arms hurt again.

She could feel it, the wave of it lapping at her feet, pulling at her. It was a black undertow.

Her nails hurt. She had done that to him.

"Ned," she said.

It was gone, but she could still feel it pressing in on her, against her chest, against her heart.

She made herself walk to the window, peering through the blinds. She felt hungover, and her headache was pounding. The grey car was gone.

When she went back to the couch, Ned had one of the pizza boxes open, and his pocketknife was out, the corkscrew in the bottle. She took a lukewarm slice and peeled a mushroom off, chewing it slowly.

"I think— don't do that again," she said, not looking at him.

"I won't if you won't."

Eventually her appetite finally came back, and she polished off three pieces and a plastic cup of wine. Ned found a half-spent roll of paper towels and she rubbed the grease off her fingers, as Ned chewed on a crust, in the charged silence.

"I—I blacked out," she said.

Ned nodded. "Yeah, I thought you did."

"It was— the way you were holding me, and... I... I don't know."

Ned moved as though to take her hand, but seemed to think better of it. Nancy reached for it herself.

"You went... crazy," he said slowly. "I have never seen you like that."

She looked down at their joined hands.

"I don't know how to help you," he said, and his voice broke, and she glanced over at him. "I can't go back and change it, Nan. I'll say I'm sorry until I'm blue in the face if that's what it takes but I can't go back and change it."

She shook her head. "I know. I know that. And when you asked me to stay I should have. But, God... I thought this was what I wanted." She snickered. Her eyes were stinging.

"Will you talk to someone?"

She shook her head. "I—I can't."

"Even if I go with you?"

She looked over at him. "I... I don't trust anyone. T-talking about it makes me feel so..."

Ned squeezed her hand. "I know. But it will get better."

"It will get better even if I don't bother talking to some asshole who will just tell me it's my own fault." She narrowed her eyes at him.

Ned released her hand. "Nan, look— oh, fuck. It's not that you asked for it. That guy is a total asshole. Every time you talk about him I want to find him and kill him with my bare hands."

"You think _you_ do?" she said, incredulous. "I can't fucking _sleep_ because of him. I can't take a bath—and, oh _God_ do I just want a bath. I can't even _run_ if he comes after me. And..." She trailed off, rubbing her knuckles against her eyes, sighing to keep the tears down.

"And I'm not here all the time," Ned said, and held up his hands, palms out, when she looked at him. "I know. I'm sorry."

"But you aren't going to be here all the time," she said, after a beat. "Even if we were living together, even if we were married, you wouldn't be with me all the time."

"And so you make sure I'm nowhere near you?"

She choked a little for a moment. God, how she hated crying. She hated the sting in the back of her throat, the way her vision swam, the cold fat tears sliding down her cheeks. "Do you not understand how fucking _hard_ it is to be this close to you? How much I _wish_ that we could just go to bed together and it be simple and easy like it used to be? I am _so afraid_ that if you touch me I'll lose it, that for the rest of my goddamn life I won't be able to think of anything but _him,_ both of them. I wake up feeling like I have to run and I fucking _can't_. I can't sleep some nights because every single sound makes me think he's coming for me again. And there's this little part of me that knows that even if he's dead, even if I kill him, he will still be there in my head. He _did this_ to me. And I don't know why you're still here with me and you're gonna find somebody who isn't this fucked up—"

Ned shook his head. "And you? You keep saying that like you're someone different—"

"I _am_!" she cried out. "And you are too, aren't you, because you fell in love with someone else—"

Ned nodded. "I did. I'm _sorry_ , I'm _fucking sorry_ , all right? But you know what, she called me a while back, and she fucking _offered_ herself to me, because she wants to have a baby, and I said no. Because what I _thought_ I felt for her? It is _nothing_ compared to how I feel about you."

She shook her head. "All this time," she said, her voice rising. "All that fucking time wasted forcing myself to go to bed with him when all I had to do was break into his fucking study and take the fucking laptop. All that time waiting for him to drop some clue and it was like _nothing._ Everything he did to me and _it was all nothing to them_ —"

The sobs that overtook her were rough, terrible. He pulled her into his arms and rocked her and she buried her face against his shirt. The shadows were longer and hazy in the dying light. She pulled the fabric of his shirt tight in her fists and sobbed until she was able to control it, his hands drifting up and down her back.

"You didn't want this," she said into his shirt, convulsing as she hiccuped.

He shrugged. "I want you," he replied. "And maybe this will be part of it for a while."


	13. Chapter 13

It was slow. But that was okay with him, finally.

They had slept in her bed, at her new place, for the first time the night before. Nothing had happened, but he was used to it; waking up with her curled against him, her back to his front, had been enough.

He wanted her, so much. He wanted her even when she was sobbing in his arms, telling him things that made him white with rage for her; he wanted her when she was incoherent, striking out at him because he was safe and there and she was terrified to admit her own fear. He wanted so much for her to go talk to someone, someone who could do something other than serve as a substitute punching bag or just pat her back and tell her it would be all right, like he was.

But it was working for her, little by little, so very slowly. He wasn't going to let her go and she was gradually realizing it, just as he was.

They were going to be okay.

Then he keyed open her door and saw the tumbled kitchen chair, the fern he had given to her as a moving-in present overturned, dirt scattered on the floor. He could see the individual dust motes drifting through the slanted sunlight coming through her blinds, and he couldn't feel her there. The silence was deafening.

"Nancy?"

His panic was swift and brutal. He searched the apartment in under a minute, his shoes heavy and loud on the floors, his panted breath ringing in his ears. The bedspread had been tugged halfway off the bed, and he found her cell phone there, on its side, forgotten.

His hand was shaking as he picked it up. The last number she had dialed was a local number, but one he didn't recognize. He redialed, his heart pounding so loudly that he could barely hear the ring at the other end.

"Hello?"

"Who is this?"

The person on the other end let out a little sigh, and Ned almost drove his fist through the wall. "Where's Nancy?"

"Who is _this_?" the other person returned.

Ned emitted a frustrated groan. "Ned Nickerson. And if you don't start talking—"

"She's okay. We know where she is."

"Do you _have her_?" Ned fought the sudden impulse to fling the phone as hard as he could against anything in what was quickly approaching despair.

The voice chuckled. "No, no. Nothing like that."

Ten minutes later, a good five minutes before he should have, Ned pulled up outside a nondescript office building on the outskirts of the city. Reception was a blur; a bland looking man with sharp eyes and a generic suit led him up to an office, where a man a few years his senior rose.

"Ned Nickerson? Agent Wesley Griffin."

Ned shook his hand, even though he wanted to slap it. "Where is she?"

Griffin exchanged a glance with the other man, of barely concealed amusement. Ned felt his face flush.

"She was recently running an operation, and two men—"

Ned's mouth was dry. "Cam and Eri."

As soon as he said their names, Griffin tilted his head and Ned knew he shouldn't have said anything, that he might have just put Nancy in trouble, but he really didn't care. "Yes. But we have a man inside. She'll be okay."

"So who else is there?"

Through the runaround that followed, Ned started tapping his fingers on the edge of Griffin's desk. Then his leg started jumping. When Ned demanded to speak to her, to know exactly where she was, Griffin just reassured him.

"Agent Alston is there. She will be fine."

_Alston._

He didn't know how he knew, but he _knew._

__   


Ned's brown eyes widened, and he rose out of his chair without thinking about it. "Cam? It's fucking _Cam,_ isn't it.He _raped her,_ you incompetent asshole, and she will be _fine_?"

"I'm sure—"

Ned couldn't feel anything, anything at all, and then he was half across the desk, sending a fine rain of paperclips, a drift of papers to the floor, his knee half-pushing the blotter, and then he punched Griffin so hard that the other man's head snapped back. When the younger agent stepped forward with a cry, Griffin waved him off, feeling in his pocket for a handkerchief.

"I'm sure it was for cover maintenance—"

"Putting aside how fucked up what you just said is," Ned snarled, "practically _every day_ for _two fucking weeks_ is cover maintenance? No. No. You tell me where she is right now or I will take this _fucking_ place apart."

And, as angry as he was, in that moment, he knew he could do it. The sheer force of his rage would practically be enough.

\--

It was exactly the way she had imagined it, save one thing. Of course Eri hadn't had time to mount a hook in the ceiling, so her wrists were cuffed behind her, her good leg shackled to the chair's leg. The rest was the same.

She had already come very close to blacking out twice. Once the first time Eri slapped her. Once when Cam pulled out his switchblade and she felt a tremble pass over her, all the way to the bone.

The motel room was dingy and dark; he hadn't bothered turning the light on, and in the faint gloom that managed to bleed through from the edge of the curtain she could see their faces. Cam's cheek was bleeding from where her fingernail had caught and torn the flesh. Eri's knuckles were bruised from the blow that had knocked the wind out of her, and left the gun just a few inches out of her grasp.

The cast. The stupid damn fucking cast. She would have been able to move faster without it and this all would have been over.

"Nancy Drew."

The sound of her real name on his lips made her shudder in revulsion. She glared up at him, tossing her hair out of her face, the metal of the cuffs biting into her wrists. Another wave of panic threatened to overwhelm her at the familiar pain of it. But she would be no good to anyone, especially herself, passed out.

Cam shifted his weight from foot to foot behind Eri, his terrible gaze locked on her.

"I don't have your laptop."

"I don't care about the laptop." He looked almost like he was going to laugh, but she could see it in the tension around his eyes, the set of his jaw. He was very angry, and a little afraid.

Then Eri pulled his gun and pressed the barrel against her temple, hard.

"The Prometheus Box. Where is it."

The Prometheus Box. She pressed her lips together, trying to think. It had been one of his last acquisitions before her escape. It was purported to hold its contents in perfect security until the owner wished otherwise.

She wasn't sure what was inside, but she had an idea that it was the key required to access the majority of his hidden, offshore accounts.

And she had never touched it.

"I don't know where it is."

The barrel of the gun struck her jaw so hard that for a moment she felt nauseated. Her flesh burned and stung under the rising welt; her eyes swam and she blinked hard until she could see the room again, the bed made with a shiny yellow rayon coverlet, too big, not with them—

She could feel herself being carried away by her panic again when the barrel of the gun touched her chin, guiding her face back up, her gaze back to his.

"I know you took it."

"I didn't," she said, and—

God, Sloane. She could feel it rise in her, that old desire to just keep him happy, please please just keep him happy, keep him from hurting her again. Sloane could find a plausible lie, could seduce him into forgetting all about this.

She would kill herself if she ever had to be Sloane again.

Eri's fingers were tightening on the gun. "I've known where you were for a while now," he said, his words clipped, tight. "And I know where you've been. If you want to be difficult, we'll just take that dark-haired man you seem to be so fond of. Maybe if you won't talk for yourself, you'll talk for him."

She had been feeling the cuffs, finding a way to get out. At the sound of those words she narrowed her eyes and glared at him. "Go to hell."

"If that's the way you want it," he said.

Nancy shook her head impatiently. "Look, you can kill every other person on this planet until you get to me and I'm still not going to tell you where it is. Because _I. Don't. Know._ "

He jabbed the gun into the tender flesh of her throat and she gagged, her eyes watering again. "How stupid do you think I am. I know you have it."

Then Eri glanced back at Cam.

It was strange, in that second, how fast she knew that they were going to break her other leg, that before they killed her they would probably gag her and take turns with her, maybe even in front of Ned.

Ned. Oh, oh God, not Ned. Not her father, not Hannah or Bess or George, not Ned.

He grabbed her by the hair.

She managed to slip her hand out of the cuff.

Then she planted her good foot on the floor and struck him hard in the knee with her cast-encased leg, teeth gritting at the pain of the impact, and caught him hard on the side of his head. Behind Eri, Cam was scrambling, and when he came close enough she brought her still-cuffed hand, her fingers wrapped around the loose cuff, up and punched him as hard as she could.

Eri grabbed her good leg and she slapped him, and the cuff caught him on the cheek. Enraged, he pulled himself to his feet and brought his fist back. She was just glad the gun wasn't in it when he landed the first few blows, but he had to stop and defend himself when she started punching him in return.

She still sat in the chair. She was still cuffed with her damn fucking cast, in the chair.

"It was gone the day I got out? God, you total idiot, don't you get it? He did it. It had to have been him. Him or someone he paid off to do it."

She screamed it. Her lip was split and it stung when she licked it, copper and bright.

"You _know_ she has it," Cam returned, weaving a little on his feet by the time he managed to find his footing again.

The three of them _felt_ the first knock instead of hearing it. The impact shook the room, and the door rattled on the hinges. Eri scooped up his gun and pressed it to her throat, and Cam aimed his gun just below the doorknob.

\--

Ned was never exactly sure what happened when they finally

(it felt like hours, like days, and he was _sure_ that she would be broken and sobbing when they walked in, and he was equally sure that he was going to murder the two smug suited men who seemed to drift when all he wanted to do was fly to her)

managed to make it to the room. There were a few false starts; someone had transposed the numbers and Ned was practically vibrating with impatience, and then finally a door swung open and immediately his gaze was locked to her face, stark white and gleaming in the dark.

There was gunfire. He heard it, felt it, distantly, heat and popping and _urgency_ , and there was shouting.

And of course he wasn't vested, and the one bullet that grazed his arm burned like an awful brand—

When he touched her it was like all the insulation peeled away, and oh his arm hurt and tears had streaked down her face and it was bloody, her cheek was bloody, her lip was split, the air was thick with shouts and the report from gunfire, and he was going to kill _every single one of them_ for hurting her.

"Ned," she whispered.

She told him later—closing her eyes the whole time, seeing it spilling in lurid color on the inside of her eyelids, in gold and crimson—that he felled Eri with an uppercut, that he slammed Cam's head into the edge of the dresser and she had let out a triumphant cry, another wave of tears spilling over her cheeks like she had done it herself.

But he didn't remember any of it. He remembered her blinking up at him and how angry he was when he saw her face, how angry at all of them. He remembered holding her hand on the way to the hospital, those same damn smug agents making noises that sounded like _debriefing_ and _contingent_ , and looking at one of them and saying very clearly that if they wanted her they could go fuck themselves.

And she had hit Eri with her cast.

The doctor frowned when he found that out, and Nancy winced when she felt the alcohol on the edge of her cuts, and Ned winced when the nurse checked the bullet graze on his arm. He could hear the little hitches in her breathing, and the color was still too high in her cheeks, the welt on her jaw was an angry red, but she was okay.

He was there when Nancy went into the room with those two assholes, who had said she was in great hands. He was holding her hand when Cam shuffled in, cuffed, and sullenly admitted that the Prometheus Box was back in Eri's house, hidden, waiting, and they actually had to physically restrain Ned from attacking him again.

"Then why the _fuck_ were you here with him," she said, her voice all cold fury.

"Because he wanted you dead," Cam replied, glaring at her. "He hasn't shut up about you since you got out. He needed an excuse and then he had one."

"You can go, Agent. We'll finish this later."

Nancy glanced back and forth between Cam and the two suited agents, her face going white. "How long," she demanded.

"How long what?"

"How long has he been feeding you _fucking lies,_ " she shouted, her fist coming down on the desk. "Oh my God, no wonder nothing ever _fucking worked._ " She sat back, shaking with anger.

Ned waited a moment, and when he touched her hand she clasped his fiercely.

"Miss Drew, we cannot comment on ongoing investigations—"

Ned felt her tense before she leaned forward. "You know what? Good. _Good._ I hope you two are very happy together. But don't you dare call me again."

He walked her to the door, and she was a few steps out in the hallway when Ned said, "And if I see _him_ ," looking at Cam, "or that other prick, ever again, it'll look like an accident."

Ned slipped his arm around her shoulders as they went out to the car, and he could feel her shaking a little, but she kept it together until she was in the passenger seat.

" _God_ ," she cried out, and covered her mouth, and he could hear her panting, trying to keep from crying.

Ned slotted the key into the ignition but didn't turn it. "I'll go back in there and kill him right now," he said. "If it will make this any better."

She turned to look at him and shook her head, her eyes shining. "They're such fools, such stupid, stupid assholes," she said softly. "And it was for no—"

Ned shook his head, touching her hand. "It wasn't for nothing."

Her mouth was trembling, and the first tear spilled down her cheek. "We could have been together," she said in a harsh whisper.

"And now we are."


	14. Chapter 14

It took months, after, for the nightmares to fade again, for her to stop waking, shivering, her face wet. Sometimes she was in Ned's bed, sometimes he was in hers, sometimes she was alone in her own.

It was easier, _everything_ was easier, once the cast came off. She looked down at her pale white leg, even more startling against her tan one, and shook her head. It took her a while to trust herself, but she started running again, started cooking dinner for them every now and then, started looking for a job. All the money she had earned while she had been Sloane had just sat in her account, waiting for her, but once she could move around by herself again, she was even more impatient for something to do.

Ned watched her scour the newspaper classifieds, the online job listings, with an indulgent smile on his face. "Come work with me," he said, his fingertips drifting over the soles of her feet.

She jerked, her heels heavy across his thighs. "You don't mean that."

He shrugged. "Guess not," he said, and caught her feet in his hands again. "I don't know. My God, you were always good at everything you tried."

She made a face at the listings. "Yeah, I just don't want to sling burgers. Or make cold calls."

He chuckled. "I'll let you know when I see an opening for a fiery goddess with miles of leg and gorgeous blue eyes."

She batted her eyelashes and giggled. "Please do."

It was one of those nights. She hadn't been anywhere near in the mood with the cast on her leg, but from that point on they had moved so, so slowly. Between them they managed to drink a bottle of wine with the spaghetti she made for dinner, and then, with the ease and certainty of the tide, she found herself swaying with him in the bedroom, and he tasted like red wine and tomato sauce when they kissed.

The moon hung full and golden as she took her shirt off, hands shaking a little, as she stepped out of her skirt and shivered when his fingers drifted over her thighs. She didn't mind so much the idea of him going down on her, but once she was mostly naked, once he started trailing his lips down her chest, she quivered under him, especially when he reached the elastic of her panties.

He pulled back. "You okay?"

She sighed. "I don't know," she said softly. "Hang on."

She sat up and when they kissed again she ran her fingertips from his cheek down, over his broad chest, his abs, down to his underwear. He took them off quickly and he was hot, firm under her touch, and he kissed her again, cupping her breast, squeezing, then drawing his fingertips in an increasingly lighter touch until he barely brushed her nipple, and she moaned.

"Better?" He was panting a little.

"Yeah," she nodded, and then she leaned down and kissed the tip of his erection.

She had done this with Ned more times than with Eri, and he had never forced her to do it, but she still had to make a conscious effort to put it aside and concentrate on _now_ , on him, on the harsh pants of his breath as he leaned back. She took it slow but Ned had been holding himself back for so long that soon he was touching her shoulder blades.

"Babe," he warned her, his voice strained.

She just nodded.

When he was spent, the warm salty taste of him at the back of her throat, she moved and put her head on his abs, her ear pressed against his flesh, like she could hear the ocean inside him.

He finally moved, after a long moment. "I want to touch you," he murmured. "I want to make love to you. Just tell me..."

She shook her head. "I think... if it's just... just your mouth..."

Ned dipped his head, once. "Can't catch a break," he said. "Of course you want me to go down on you."

"And you don't?"

He shrugged, stroking her hips until she moved away from him to slowly pull her panties off. "I'll take what I can get," he told her.

And oh, _oh,_ how awful it was, waiting for something to click in her head, just as it had every time, waiting for his touch to wake something terrible in her.

But it didn't happen, not this time. She didn't shove him off her, crying and murmuring apologies. He parted her and flicked his tongue over the delicate folds of wet flesh between her thighs and she shivered at the sensation. He made his way to her clit and she arched, her whimpers edged in the pain of blooming arousal, and he stroked her inner thighs gently, slowly.

"Oh my God, oh my _God_ ," she groaned, and when he found a rhythm she moved against him, her hips circling under him. He suckled and teased her clit until she quivered, and she felt it, that frightening desire, that need to feel him inside her and her fear about what would happen—

and she came and it was slow and he drew it out for her, as her whimpers turned to low groans of pleasure, as she jerked and squirmed under him.

And then, slowly, very slowly, he pressed one finger up between the press of her thighs, his tongue flicking over her clit.

And she was wet and so tight and she froze with sudden panic, but it was _Ned_ , it was him, and when he drew his finger out and pressed it in again she spasmed around it, gasping for breath as she came again. It didn't hurt, she had just been so afraid it would, and she could feel his tongue on her as she moved helplessly under him.

Then he kissed her thigh and sat up, smiling. "You did so great, babe."

They had never made it so far, since. She had always gotten scared and stopped him before they could get too far, and she knew it frustrated him. Hell, it had frustrated _her_.

When he leaned over her, when he kissed her, he tasted of her and her heart was beating so, so fast, and she threaded her fingers in his hair and squeezed her thighs together.

"Nan," he whispered, and he kissed her neck, and they were naked, and she jumped a little when his fingertips drifted over her bare flesh. She felt _loved_ , and afraid, but it was him, and she was still prickle-warm and sated from their lovemaking.

"I love you," she whispered.

He pulled back, and she could only just see his eyes shining in the dark. "I love you, so much," he said.

And she remembered it again. Their time together in Berlin, the time she had tried so hard to put aside for so long. How deeply he had loved her and how she thought she had loved him, but she hadn't _known_ , not the way she finally knew when she found out he was with someone else, not the way she had when she had realized that he was all that kept her going. And she had loved him the whole time; she had just been afraid of forever, afraid that they would change.

They had changed. But they were still here. And he was with her even after everything, and while she couldn't quite forget that until very recently he had still technically been married to someone else, she had been too.

He had said those words to his wife. She had said them to Eri, too.

They just hadn't said them since, even though she knew he still had the ring, even though she still wore the necklace he had returned to her.

She pulled him down, her leg looped around his, and when he shifted onto his side and their bodies molded together she closed her eyes with a sigh.

\--

Ned had done it twice before. The first time had been terrifying, but the second time had gone pretty well—

Well, kind of, anyway. In retrospect, not quite as well as he had thought at the time.

He spent the entire day in a state of mounting panic, though. He had to tell himself not to call her at least four times. He kept having to ask people to repeat themselves whenever they talked to him. A few times he caught himself heading away from his desk with no idea of what he was doing.

He had found the black velvet box her ring had lived in, before, and dusted it off. He had set the table before he left for work. He had a great bottle of red waiting for them and he had a foolproof recipe, and this time they wouldn't be in bed, this time they would be alone together and it would be as perfect as he could make it.

This time, he was sure

(almost sure, mostly sure, oh God)

that she would say yes, that they were finally, after so damn long, finally at the same place. She had moved here to be with him, to be close to him, after all. They spent practically every weekend together.

And she loved him. He had spent an entire Saturday naked with her in bed, kissing her and telling her that he loved her, watching her giggle and blush and sigh his name, adoration shining in her eyes. She loved him and his love for her, for so long, had been like a stone in him, a curse he carried without hope for relief. Hearing her say the words, without having to say it first this time, had turned him helpless with it again.

He had had such control, such perfect total control over the way he felt about her. Now it was gone. It had taken months and the slow weight of her confidence and his fading belief that this was just another temporary elusive dream, but he was back at that wonderful place where he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was _her_ , that Laura had just been a pale shadow of what he had wanted.

And it was terrifying. He had already failed with Nancy once. His marriage to Laura felt like a damn federal disaster. He wasn't naive enough to think that Nancy would ever be able to forget what had happened to her at Eri's house, in Eri's arms, and she wasn't the same girl he had proposed to in that hotel room back in Chicago; she wasn't even the same girl he had locked gazes with in the airport in Berlin.

But she was the one. He had spent too long trying to convince himself otherwise, had already wasted so much time.

When he keyed into his apartment she was already there, on his couch. The television was on but she thumbed the volume down as soon as he stepped over the threshold, and turned to him, her eyes shining.

She _knew_. He knew that she knew.

"Big dinner plans tonight?" she asked, coming around the couch.

"Maybe," he said, and then the reflection caught his glance.

She was wearing it. She was already wearing it.

She looked down at the ring and back up at him and gave him a small smile. "I... I'm sorry, I saw it, and... I—maybe I..."

He shook his head. "So... so I was going to ask you..."

She reached for the ring and he stepped forward, put his hand on hers, stilling it.

"What were you going to ask me, Ned," she said, her voice low, and peered at him through her lashes, her lips still turned up in that little smile.

"If maybe we should try this again, and do it right this time," he said, softly.

"I don't know about _right_ ," she said. "And I think it's going to take a really long time and I don't know how to be a wife, really, and I love you _so much_ that I'm terrified I'm going to fuck this up—"

He touched her lips. "We won't," he said softly. "We won't fuck this up. And I don't know how to be a husband either. I just know how much I love you, and I want you, I want _this_ with you."

She looked down. "But what is _this._ "

"Everything we can have," he said.

When she looked up at him her eyes were shining again. "It wasn't _real_ the first time," she said. "I want everyone to be there, I want a gorgeous dress, I want the cake and the honeymoon and I don't want to feel like I'm about to come out of my skin the whole time."

"Okay," he said.

She shook her head. "It's not this easy. Right? It's just not this easy."

"Yeah it is."

He took the ring and pushed it the quarter inch, back down onto her finger, and leaned down and kissed her, slowly. By the time he pulled back she was breathless, swayed against him, her gaze heavy-lidded with desire.

"I seem to remember something about dinner," she said lazily, and he laughed.

\--

It was late, so late that the doorman was behind his desk with the lamp on and he just nodded sleepily at her as she pressed the call button for the elevator. A soft rain was falling, like a hush; it had left darker specks on her coat, put a soft curl into the ends of her hair.

Ned's apartment was still and quiet once she keyed in and gently closed the door behind her. She reset the alarm system he had installed for her and toed her shoes off, walking barefoot to his bedroom.

She had so much to do before their flight, too much to do, and what little sleep she had managed to steal wasn't doing her any good at all. The darkness seemed to pulse with livid purples. She couldn't hear his familiar snores.

When she walked into his bedroom, keeping very quiet, his eyes were already open. "Hey," he said, and his voice was rusty with sleep; the sound of it sent a shiver down her spine.

"Hey," she said softly, and reached for the tie of her raincoat.

Ned pushed himself up a little, rubbing at his eye with a fist. "Hmm," he said, smiling. "I do always like this dream."

"What dream would that be?" She slipped out of the coat and folded it over his footboard, then reached for the hem of her shirt.

"Uh... it goes a lot like this," he said, eyeing her curiously. "You doing okay?"

She nodded. "I... was having a dream too," she said. Her bra followed her shirt and Ned stripped out of his own shirt, sitting up in the bed, revealing a toned chest and a set of washboard abs. "And I woke up and I was wet, and thinking about you, and I..."

Ned raised his eyebrows when she trailed off. "I will pay you to finish that sentence," he said seriously, as she blushed. She looked away and slipped out of her shorts, pushed her panties down.

Then she came to the side of his bed, where he was sitting up, barechested, and she was naked. The glow from the streetlamps outside kept shifting with the rain as it tracked down his window, and his gaze was guarded when it met hers.

"I want to try," she said, and he reached for her hand, caged her wrist in forefinger and thumb.

"Okay," he said softly.

They had, but only a few times, and then the stress and her fear got the best of her, and then they just found another way. And he was _amazing_ when he was going down on her, when his touch made her come, and she was getting good at returning the favor. When she had asked him if he was dissatisfied, if he was getting impatient, he had just laughed and said that sex with her, regardless of exactly what it entailed, was good.

But she still wanted to feel him inside her, and she was sure that no matter what he told her, he wanted it too.

His fingers trailed over her palm, and then he tossed the covers back and moved over. As she was climbing in beside him he pushed his underwear off and tossed them beside the bed.

Then he turned to face her and she had to giggle. "How awkward is this," she said, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear, and she saw his gaze flick to her ring.

"Uh, remember the whole 'I think we should have sex before I go' thing?" he asked. "Yeah, that was totally natural too."

"So in the dream how does this go?" she asked him, her eyes sparkling.

"How did it go earlier?" he returned, with a smile.

She made a face at him, and then he moved in close and she was about to say something when he was kissing her. He kept it slow and she tilted her head, bringing her hand up to run her fingers through his hair. He looped an arm around her waist and soon she was sitting up on her knees, returning the kiss hard. When she broke it off he ran his hands down her back, his fingertips tracing down her spine, and closed his mouth over her nipple, sweeping his tongue against the tip. She tossed her hair back and when he suckled against the other, slowly, she let out a little moan.

Then he trailed his fingers slowly down her belly, and when he stroked a finger up between her legs he groaned against her breast. "Fuck," he mumbled, and his teeth glanced over her nipple, and she sucked in a swift breath. "Babe," he said in approval, and then he found her clit with his thumb and she whimpered.

"Here," he whispered, and he took her leg, urging it to the other side of his hips so she was straddling him. She spread her knees and cried out when he slipped two fingers into her, his thumb gently rubbing her clit. She panted against his neck, trailing kisses over his shoulders, as he pressed against the small of her back, urging her close to him, and she rode his fingers, her nails sweeping over his shoulder blades. She bit her lip and then caught his lips with hers, in a slow distracted kiss, as he slipped his fingers out of her.

But he didn't angle against her, didn't position himself under her. Instead he grasped her breasts and she felt his fingertips drag the slick heat of her arousal in spirals over the hard tips of her nipples, and then he licked it off, slowly, thoroughly, as she squirmed over him. She bucked her hips against him, and—

oh, oh _God_ , his cock, she could feel the hot head of it, snug against his belly. She brushed her hips, the pale delicate skin of her inner thighs, against him, and he glanced his teeth over her nipple and she shivered.

"More, God, more," she begged, and she took him in her hand, the firm heat of him, and let her hips sink down, and touched the tip of his erection to her clit.

As soon as she felt it she shivered back, but that slow burn inside her had begun and she jerked back to him, tilting her head back, her nipples cooling and sensitive as she stroked the head of his cock against the wet sensitive button of her clit. He squeezed her ass, stroked her inner thighs, and when she just barely led him down he jerked, almost shivering with need. She did it a few more times and he was panting, urgent under her.

"Now," he begged her, and squeezed her nipples hard, and she let out a shivering sigh. "Now, baby, now, God, I need you so much."

She angled him and he pushed his hips forward, and as she sank to him, her thighs enfolding his hips, they were both tensed, almost thrumming with desire. She tilted her hips and held him in place as the head of his cock just barely pressed between her legs, and she tensed. _God_ , it had been so long, she was almost as sore as she had been that first time, but oh, _oh._

"Oh," she breathed, letting herself sink another inch. "Oh, _Ned_ ," she half-sobbed, and he angled his hips and she grasped his headboard, and she was so exposed, so naked, so defenseless over him.

He licked his thumb and touched her clit, circled it, rubbed it, flicked his thumbnail over it, and with every delighted jerk of her hips, every shiver across her shoulders she sank a little further down onto him. And then she bit her lip, and with a sigh that matched his she sank until he was fully inside her, the entire thick length of him.

He grasped her hip, urging her rhythm, and the color was high on her cheeks as she started to ride his cock. She knew when he liked it because he squeezed her clit gently between forefinger and thumb, he let out little groans of pleasure, and his lips brushed her breasts, her neck, any skin he could reach as she rose and sank against him.

She had control. She had all the control, and she had none of it. There was nothing to fear. He wasn't—he wasn't anyone else, and he loved her—

"I love you," she gasped out, her hair clinging to her glowing cheeks as she sank, taking him to the hilt inside her.

"I love you," he murmured.

And then he grasped her ass, kissing her hard as he shifted forward. "Are you okay, I just," he said, his breath hitching, as his cock, still hard and hot, slid wetly out of her.

"Yeah," she answered, breathily, even though she could feel her heart pounding inside her.

When he took her her knees were bent, legs parted and open to him, and she let out a gasping cry as he entered her. He thrust and thrust again, again, smooth against the slick clench of her sex, and she was propped up on her elbows, her hair falling smoothly down to the bed as he moved between her legs. With a grunt of effort he shifted all his weight to one palm and slipped the other between her legs, and when he touched her clit again she surged against him, whining at the pleasure of it.

He held himself back until she began to come, her hips moving instinctively against his, under him, her head tipped back to expose her throat. She shuddered under one long thrust and then he was shaking over her, murmuring her name, and his thumb fluttered against her clit and she cried out.

Slowly, so slowly, he stilled, and she was sore, sensitive from the press of him, and even when he finally pulled out of her that awareness was still there. She let herself fall back and lay sprawled on the bed, naked, his seed inside her.

Soon they would get on a plane together, and go to Chicago, to see her father, Hannah, their friends. Soon she would go for another fitting, and stand gazing at herself in another dress, with only delighted butterflies crowded in her stomach. And then, it wouldn't be too long now, they would stand before them all and say that this was forever, again.

And he would be the last man who had spent himself inside her, the last man who had made her come. From now he always would be.

He slipped his arms around her and pulled her with him, back to rest her head on the pillow, and they lay facing each other.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I..."

She touched his cheek, gently. "It's perfect," she said softly. "Perfect."


End file.
